Intra-hospital delays in stroke patients treated with rt-PA: impact of preadmission notification

Pre-hospital notification enhances thrombolysis rate and improves intra-hospital delays, but the impact of the notification to the neurologist by the emergency medical system (EMS) call centre remains unknown. Our objective was to compare pre-hospital and in-hospital delays in stroke patients treated by intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA), with and without pre-hospital notification. We compared baseline characteristics and in-hospital delays in stroke patients treated by rt-PA with a high-level notification (call to EMS and EMS-neurologist discussion), a low-level notification (call to EMS without EMS-neurologist discussion ) and no pre-hospital notification. Of 302 consecutive patients [165 women, 54.6 %; median age 74 years, interquartile range (IQR) 59-83], patients with high-level, low-level and no notification differed for the severity at admission (median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores, respectively, of: 12, IQR 7-17; 9, IQR 6-15, and 8, IQR 6-14, p = 0.029). Patients with high-level notification had shorter (1) admission-to-completion of imaging times (27 min, IQR 14-35) than patients with low-level notification (35 min, IQR 17-54) or no notification (36 min, IQR 30-58) (p < 0.01); (2) door-to-needle times (49 min, IQR 39-62 vs. 57 min, IQR 39-81 vs. 63 min, IQR 51-97; p = 0.003); and (3) onset-to-needle times (140 min, IQR 110-175 vs. 155 min, IQR 106-230 vs. 182 min, IQR 131-234; p < 0.001). They did not differ for onset-to-admission time and imaging-to-needle time. Pre-hospital notification by the EMS reduces intra-hospital delays in patients eligible for rt-PA, but the benefit is higher in the case of discussion between the EMS and the neurologist before admission.