Hub And Spoke Telemedicine

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During the progression of a stroke, nervous tissue is lost rapidly and permanently. This suggests that for stroke diagnosis and treatment, time is of the essence (Saver, 2006). Fortunately, telemedicine for stroke patients can help specialists to evaluate a patient immediately, while emergency assistance is on its way, significantly decreasing the likelihood of serious and life-threating effects.
Telemedicine has been defined as the use of the transference of medical information remotely from one site to another using various electronic communication devices such as smart phones, web cams, robotic telepresence, and email (American Telemedicine Association, 2012). One common model for telemedicine is known as Hub and Spoke. The Hub and Spoke …show more content…

Telemedicine is usually comprised of an organized cross-functional team: Physicians who specialize in neurology and can make diagnoses and authoritative decisions regarding the treatment of the patients; Emergency Medical Services personnel who facilitate the transport, care and the administering of emergency medications; and other remote administrative and medical staff who perform various tasks. These staff include: vascular neurologists, neurosurgeons, and neuro-radiologists. Those in stroke telemedicine centers work as a team with emergency medicine doctors and staff at remote sites, treating hundreds of stroke patients every year. This can mean the difference in the preservation of a patient’s quality of life or the patient’s survival (Mayo Clinic, …show more content…

The primary motivation for telestroke was to increase the applicable use of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in patients with acute ischaemic stroke (Hess & Audebert, 2013). Ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel carrying blood to the brain is obstructed by a blood clot (National Stroke Association, 2016). The ‘time is brain’ concept was more fully understood and this strengthened the use of the tPA. Since then, technology advances have alleviated some of the telestroke challenges caused by geographic disparity in certain regions by expanding its availability. Subsequently, this practice has become more widely accepted by insurance companies, enabling its access to an increasing number of stroke patients (Hess & Audebert, 2013). In the long-term, telestroke can be very cost-effective so long as the network is well organized and primed for adeptness. A physician’s ability to see patients remotely allows him or her to see more patients and observe them more frequently, increasing the level of care received. Additionally, the reduced overhead costs foster operational efficiency by eliminating some expenditures. This is a mutually advantageous solution for rural patients hampered by time/distance constraints and commute expenses (Mayo Clinic,

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