swyMed’s Solutions for Mobile Telestroke
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stroke is the nation’s number five killer and a leading cause of serious long-term disability, with nearly 800,000 strokes and 130,000 deaths occurring in the U.S. per year. For patients experiencing a stroke, every minute matters. Delay in care delivery increases risk of brain damage and long-term disability to the patient. This is a particular challenge in rural areas where local hospitals do not have 24-hour neurology coverage to make real time assessments, and patients often live too far away from a stroke center to receive timely treatment.
Telestroke, the use of telemedicine technology to assess and treat stroke, has become an increasingly popular practice to address the problems of distance, time and coverage. Neurologists are able to remotely evaluate patients in real time as if they were right in the room, leveraging advanced video telemedicine technology to communicate diagnosis and treatment recommendations to emergency care teams who are with the patient.
The Opportunity for Mobile Telestroke
In a series of studies, it was shown that emergency physicians had a nearly 100% accuracy rate[1] for stroke diagnoses, while EMS dispatchers were correct 52% of the time and EMS personnel on scene were correct 72%[2] of the time. As you might expect, giving the most highly trained expert the most direct contact with the patient improves the accuracy of the assessment. Following this logic a few more steps, with the right assessment, the chances of making the right treatment decisions go up, the chances of moving the patient once to the right place for treatment go up, and the chances that the patient will have an improved outcome go up.
Today, telemedicine technology can provide a reliable, high quality, real-time interaction between doctor and patient while the patient is still in the field. Mobility enhances both the speed and quality of care. With providers now able to see and assess the patient before they arrive at the hospital, patients can bypass the emergency department and immediately head to a CT scan that is ready and waiting, significantly speeding up access to proper treatment, including tPA, the clot-dissolving drug for ischemic strokes (87% of strokes)[3].
swyMed’s Solutions for Mobile Telestroke
swyMed’s patented software overcomes traditional connectivity issues such as latency or packet loss that can hamper life-saving mobile telestroke efforts, enabling healthcare professionals to treat and monitor patients from anywhere, even where bandwidth is limited. swyMed’s software, along with the DOT Telemedicine Backpack, is designed for mobile use and equipped with the key components required to ensure reliable connectivity, when seconds count. The DOT Telemedicine Backpack is light, easy to use, and gives mobile care providers the ability to connect to doctors for real-time video telemedicine – anywhere, any time. It includes:
- High gain antenna array
- Dual-modem, multi-carrier cellular connection
- Eight-hour battery
- Integrated speaker / microphone
- Ruggedized tablet with full HD camera
swyMed’s DOT Mini is also an ideal solution for mobile telestroke. It is an intelligent enterprise hotspot that provides the connectivity backbone needed to ensure a dependable video and audio connection, even in areas where networks are challenged and bandwidth is limited. It can be easily mounted in an emergency vehicle for mobile telestroke, and is equipped with two external MiMo antennas, battery, dual modems, dual carrier’s swyMed’s software, and comes with professional installation and ongoing technical support.
Every day, innovative hospitals and healthcare systems are counting on swyMed to provide a consistent, uninterrupted, high-quality connection to a physician even in the most difficult environments, saving not only time and money, but most importantly, the lives and lifestyles of stroke victims.
[1] Stroke Dec 1995, Kothari et al
[2] Stroke June 1995, Kothari et al
[3] American Stroke Association Website 12/2017
