Stroke centers are also finding they need to retrain 911 dispatchers to make stroke a higher priority. They re teaching dispatchers to call the ambulance that s closest to the stroke patient. And ambulance services are being urged to transport patients to hospitals that have streamlined stroke protocols in place. That s correct. Oregon Stroke Center neuroradiologist Gary Nesbit.
Rehabilitation costs over a year anywhere from thirty to fifty thousand dollars, or even more.
And so when you look at the cost effectiveness, if we can get patients out of rehabilitation hospitals, out of nursing homes and back home, not only will it make them better, but we also decrease costs. Oregon doctors are experimenting with drugs that might get around TPA s problems. This man arrived at the Stroke Center last year practically brain dead nine and a half hours after his stroke. Dr. Wayne Clark injected a drug called Urokinase directly into the blood clot. By the next morning I still was not hopeful, but when we came in and saw, he was now moving his arms and was responding to verbal commands.