Quality improvement in acute stroke: The New York State Stroke Center Designation Project

Background: Many hospitals lack the infrastructure required to treat patients with acute stroke. The Brain Attack Coalition (BAC) published guidelines for the establishment of primary stroke centers. Objective: To determine if stroke center designation and selective triage of acute stroke patients improve quality of care. Methods: Baseline chart abstraction was performed on all stroke patients admitted to 32 hospitals serving Brooklyn and Queens, NY, from March to May 2002. Hospitals were invited to meet BAC guideline-based criteria. Adherence was verified by on-site visits. After designation, acute stroke patients were selectively triaged. Remeasurement data were collected from August to October 2003. Results: The authors abstracted 1,598 charts at baseline and 1,442 charts at remeasurement. From baseline to remeasurement, median times decreased for door to physician contact (25 vs 15 minutes, p = 0.001), CT performance for potential tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) candidates (68 vs 32 minutes, p p = NS). IV t-PA utilization increased from 2.4 to 5.2% ( p p = NS), and the stroke unit admission rate increased from 16 to 39% ( p p p = NS), and t-PA administration (95 vs 115 minutes, p p Conclusions: Stroke center designation and selective triage of acute stroke patients improved the quality of care, including access to timely thrombolytic therapy and stroke units.