Mayo Clinic Health System has brought its telestroke program to the La Crosse, Wis., inpatient setting, according to La Crosse Tribune.
What has traditionally been used in emergency rooms will now allow clinicians to address strokes much quicker in the inpatient setting. Mayo Clinic has used the telestroke services to treat nearly 90,000 patients in the emergency room.
Although Mayo Clinic believes the telestroke services will be less frequently used in the inpatient setting, clinicians still see the value of expanding the technology.
"If inpatient telestroke services is as successful as we think it will be, we are looking forward to expanding [it] to other hospitals across Mayo Clinic Health System," Bard Demaerschalk, MD, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic, told the La Crosse Tribune. " It's one of the many ways that telemedicine and digital health care can help all our patients have access to Mayo Clinic expertise and knowledge while still being treated locally."
Mayo Clinic collaborated with the Enterprise Telestroke Committee, Center for Connected Care, its IT department and the La Crosse stroke program to bring the telemedicine services to the inpatient setting.