Telehealth has truly come into its own during the Covid pandemic, with the technology not only helping to maintain service levels during our socially distanced times, but also helping to reduce some of the health inequalities that continue to plague society.  The range of applications continues to impress, however, with a recent Harvard study highlighting the benefits telemedicine provides to stroke patients.

The researchers highlight how important it is for people admitted to hospital with suggestive stroke symptoms to receive a rapid assessment to limit any brain damage they may experience.  Unfortunately, many hospitals lack round-the-clock stroke teams, so such quick diagnoses can be lacking.

This is where telehealth comes in, as it allows hospitals to tap into expertise located hundreds of miles away.  The study found that such patients understandably fare better than others who have to wait for on-site teams to become available.

Available care

The use of telehealth services allowed hospitals without local expertise at any particular moment in time to easily connect patients to neurologists who have experience and expertise in stroke treatment.

These experts are connected via video and they examine each patient while also reviewing radiology tests before making their recommendation on the best course of treatment.

The researchers suggest that telemedicine is becoming more common in stroke care, with around a third of hospitals across the US now using it in some form.  The study is one of the first to evaluate its impact, however.

“Our findings provide important evidence that telestroke improves care and can save lives,” the researchers explain.

One interesting finding was that patients seen via telemedicine had higher relative rates of reperfusion treatment, which helps to restore blood flow to areas of the brain that are affected by the stroke before the damage becomes irreparable.  Those patients seen via telemedicine were 13% more likely to have such treatment, which reduced their 30-day mortality rate by 4%.  These benefits were understandably greatest in rural areas that may lack on-site expertise.

“The benefits from telestroke appear to be the greatest at small rural hospitals — the very facilities that were also the least likely to have telestroke capacity,” the researchers conclude. “These findings emphasize the need to address the financial barriers these smaller hospitals face in introducing telestroke.”