Andrew P. Reimer

Telemedicine in Prehospital Stroke Evaluation and Thrombolysis: Taking Stroke Treatment to the Doorstep

IMPORTANCE Mobile stroke treatment units (MSTUs) with on-site treatment teams that include a vascular neurologist can provide thrombolysis in the prehospital setting faster than treatment in the hospital. These units can be made more resource efficient if the need for an on-site neurologist can be eliminated by relying solely on telemedicine for physician presence. OBJECTIVE To test whether telemedicine is reliable and remote physician presence is adequate for acute stroke treatment using an MSTU. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective observational study conducted between July 18 and November 1, 2014. The dates of the study analysis were November 1, 2014, to March 30, 2015. The setting was a community-based study assessing telemedicine success of the MSTU in Cleveland, Ohio. Participants were the first 100 residents of Cleveland who had an acute onset of stroke-like symptoms between 8 am and 8 pm and were evaluated by the MSTU after the implementation of the MSTU program at the Cleveland Clinic. A vascular neurologist evaluated the first 100 patients via telemedicine, and a neuroradiologist remotely assessed images obtained by mobile computed tomography (CT). Data were entered into the medical record and a prospective registry. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The study compared the evaluation and treatment of patients on the MSTU with a control group of patients brought to the emergency department via ambulance during the same year. Process times were measured from the time the patient entered the door of the MSTU or emergency department, and any problems encountered during his or her evaluation were recorded. RESULTS Ninety-nine of 100 patients were evaluated successfully. The median duration of telemedicine evaluation was 20 minutes (interquartile range [IQR], 14-27 minutes). One connection failure was due to crew error, and the patient was transported to the nearest emergency department. There were 6 telemedicine disconnections, none of which lasted longer than 60 seconds or affected clinical care. Times from the door to CT completion (13 minutes [IQR, 9-21 minutes]) and from the door to intravenous thrombolysis (32 minutes [IQR, 24-47 minutes]) were significantly shorter in the MSTU group compared with the control group (18 minutes [IQR, 12-26 minutes] and 58 minutes [IQR, 53-68 minutes], respectively). Times to CT interpretation did not differ significantly between the groups. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE An MSTU using telemedicine is feasible, with a low rate of technical failure, and may provide an avenue for reducing the high cost of such systems.

A Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit for Field Triage of Patients for Intraarterial Revascularization Therapy.

Favorable outcomes in intraarterial therapy (IAT) for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) are related to early vessel recanalization. The mobile stroke treatment unit (MSTU) is an on‐site, prehospital, treatment team, laboratory, and CT scanner that reduces time to treatment for intravenous thrombolysis and may also shorten time to IAT.

Flight nursing expertise: towards a middle‐range theory

AIM This paper presents a middle-range Theory of Flight Nursing Expertise. BACKGROUND Rotary-wing (helicopter) medical transport has grown rapidly in the USA since its introduction, particularly during the past 5 years. Patients once considered too sick to transport are now being transported more frequently and over longer distances. Many limitations are imposed by the air medical transport environment and these require nurses to alter their practice. DATA SOURCES A literature search was conducted using Pubmed, Medline, CINAHL, secondary referencing and an Internet search from 1960 to 2008 for studies related to the focal concepts in flight nursing. DISCUSSION The middle-range Theory of Flight Nursing Expertise is composed of nine concepts (experience, training, transport environment of care, psychomotor skills, flight nursing knowledge, cue recognition, pattern recognition, decision-making and action) and their relationships. Five propositions describe the relationships between those concepts and how they apply to flight nursing expertise. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING After empirical testing, this theory may be a useful tool to assist novice flight nurses to attain the skills necessary to provide safe and competent care more efficiently, and may aid in designing curricula and programmes of research. CONCLUSION Research is needed to determine the usefulness of this theory in both rotary and fixed-wing medical transport settings, and to examine the similarities and differences related to expertise needed for different flight nurse team compositions. Curriculum and training innovations can result from increased understanding of the concepts and relationships proposed in this theory.

Reduction in time to treatment in prehospital telemedicine evaluation and thrombolysis

Objective: To compare the times to evaluation and thrombolytic treatment of patients treated with a telemedicine-enabled mobile stroke treatment unit (MSTU) vs those among patients brought to the emergency department (ED) via a traditional ambulance. Methods: We implemented a MSTU with telemedicine at our institution starting July 18, 2014. A vascular neurologist evaluated each patient via telemedicine and a neuroradiologist and vascular neurologist remotely assessed images obtained by the MSTU CT. Data were entered in a prospective registry. The evaluation and treatment of the first 100 MSTU patients (July 18, 2014–November 1, 2014) was compared to a control group of 53 patients brought to the ED via a traditional ambulance in 2014. Times were expressed as medians with their interquartile ranges. Results: Patient and stroke severity characteristics were similar between 100 MSTU and 53 ED control patients (initial NIH Stroke Scale score 6 vs 7, p = 0.679). There was a significant reduction of median alarm-to-CT scan completion times (33 minutes MSTU vs 56 minutes controls, p < 0.0001), median alarm-to-thrombolysis times (55.5 minutes MSTU vs 94 minutes controls, p < 0.0001), median door-to-thrombolysis times (31.5 minutes MSTU vs 58 minutes controls, p = 0.0012), and symptom-onset-to-thrombolysis times (97 minutes MSTU vs 122.5 minutes controls, p = 0.0485). Sixteen patients evaluated on MSTU received thrombolysis, 25% of whom received it within 60 minutes of symptom onset. Conclusion: Compared with the traditional ambulance model, telemedicine-enabled ambulance-based thrombolysis resulted in significantly decreased time to imaging and treatment.

Data quality assessment framework to assess electronic medical record data for use in research.

INTRODUCTION The proliferation and use of electronic medical records (EMR) in the clinical setting now provide a rich source of clinical data that can be leveraged to support research on patient outcomes, comparative effectiveness, and health systems research. Once the large volume and variety of data that robust clinical EMRs provide is aggregated, the suitability of the data for research purposes must be addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we present a stepwise framework capable of guiding initial data quality assessment when matching multiple data sources regardless of context or application. Then, we demonstrate a use case of initial analysis of a longitudinal data repository of electronic health record data that illustrates the first four steps of the framework, and report results. METHODS A six-step data quality assessment framework is proposed and described that includes the following data quality assessment steps: (1) preliminary analysis, (2) documentation-longitudinal concordance, (3) breadth, (4) data element presence, (5) density, and (6) prediction. The six-step framework was applied to the Transport Data Mart-a data repository that contains over 28,000 records for patients that underwent interhospital transfer that includes EMRs from the sending hospitalization, transport, and receiving hospitalization. RESULTS There were a total of 9557 log entries of which 8139 were successfully matched to corresponding hospital encounters. 2832 were successfully mapped to both the sending and receiving hospital encounters (resulting in a 93% automatic matching rate), with 590 including air medical transport EMR data representing a complete case for testing. Results from Step 2 indicate that once records are identified and matched, there appears to be relatively limited drop-off of additional records when the criteria for matching increases, indicating the a proportion of records consistently contain nearly complete data. Measures of central tendency used in Step 3 and 4 exhibit a right skewness suggesting that a small proportion of records contain the highest number of repeated measures for the measured variables. CONCLUSIONS The proposed six-step data quality assessment framework is useful in establishing the metadata for a longitudinal data repository that can be replicated by other studies. There are practical issues that need to be addressed including the data quality assessments-with the most prescient being the need to establish data quality metrics for benchmarking acceptable levels of EMR data inclusiveness through testing and application.

Decreasing door-to-balloon times via a streamlined referral protocol for patients requiring transport

PURPOSES The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a streamlined interfacility referral protocol in reducing door-to-balloon (D2B) times for patients experiencing acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). BASIC PROCEDURES In a retrospective database review, we compared D2B times for patients requiring interfacility transfer after the implementation of a streamlined referral protocol. All patients undergoing interfacility transport with a referring diagnosis of STEMI were eligible for inclusion. Quality management databases were reviewed by trained abstractors using standardized data entry forms for D2B times from July 2009 through June 2010. Median D2B times with interquartile ranges are reported. MAIN FINDINGS A total of 133 patients exhibited complete data and were included in the analysis, 54 of which were transferred via the streamlined referral protocol. Streamlined referral patients exhibited a median D2B time of 101 minutes (interquartile range, 88-128) vs a median D2B time of 122 minutes (interquartile range, 99-157) for the traditional referral group (P = .001). Door-to-balloon times of 90 minutes or less were achieved in 13% of the traditional referral patients and in 30% of the streamlined protocol group (odds ratio, 2.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.2-7). PRINCIPAL CONCLUSION The implementation of a streamlined referral protocol has significantly reduced D2B times for patients diagnosed with STEMI that required interfacility transport for intervention.

Adaptation of the AACN Synergy Model for Patient Care to Critical Care Transport

Todays health care delivery system relies heavily on interhospital transfer of patients who require higher levels of care. Although numerous tools and algorithms have been used for the prehospital determination of mode of transport, no tool for the transfer of patients between hospitals has been widely accepted. Typically, the interfacility transport decision is left to the discretion of the referring provider, who may or may not be aware of the level of care provided or the means of transport available. A need exists to determine the appropriate level of care required to meet the needs of patients during transport. The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) Synergy Model for Patient Care is a patient-centered model that focuses on optimizing patient care by matching the characteristics of the patient with the competencies of the nurse. This model shows significant promise in providing the theoretical backing to guide the decision on the level of care necessary to complete interfacility transfers safely and effectively. This article describes a new tool inspired by the AACN Synergy Model for Patient Care to determine the appropriate level of care required for interfacility transport.

Predictive accuracy of medical transport information for in-hospital mortality

HighlightsInterhospital transfer patients experience increased mortality compared to patients that present directly to the same hospital.Transport data in combination with APACHE data does not increase post‐transport mortality prognostication.Patients transferred from sending hospital ICUs experience higher mortality rates.Patients transferred via expedited helicopter transfer protocols (autolaunch) experience increased survival post‐transfer.Future research should focus on pre‐transport data.

Emergency Patient Handoffs: Identifying Essential Elements and Developing an Evidence-Based Training Tool

BACKGROUND Patient handoffs between care teams have been recognized as a major patient safety risk due to inadequate exchange or loss of critical information, especially during emergent patient transfers. The purpose of this literature review was to identify the essential elements of effective patient handoffs in emergency situations to develop a standardized tool to support a structured patient handoff procedure capable of guiding education and training. METHOD A literature search of handoff procedures and patient transfers was conducted using the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature and PubMed between 2008 and 2015. RESULTS Two global themes were identified-Crew Interactions, and Essential Data Elements-resulting in a tool containing 30 objective and five subjective items. CONCLUSION Through the literature review, synthesis, and workgroup consensus, we developed a standardized tool to guide standardized education, training, and future inquiry in prehospital and emergent patient handoffs. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2018;49(1):34-41.

Veracity in big data: How good is good enough:

Veracity, one of the five V’s used to describe big data, has received attention when it comes to using electronic medical record data for research purposes. In this perspective article, we discuss the idea of data veracity and associated concepts as it relates to the use of electronic medical record data and administrative data in research. We discuss the idea that electronic medical record data are “good enough” for clinical practice and, as such, are “good enough” for certain applications. We then propose three primary issues to attend to when establishing data veracity: data provenance, cross validation, and context.