ARTICLE SUMMARY:
The process of assessing status changes in stroke patients in the ICU is inefficient, costly, and wastes precious time. MedTech Innovator Award winner StrokeDx has developed a portable and affordable device that rapidly gives clinicians the information they need to choose the proper course of care.
The clock is always ticking for acute stroke patients, since, as is often quoted, every minute of cerebral ischemia results in the death of one million neurons, and with that, perhaps the loss of the ability to move an arm or to reason. Yet, despite advances in the field, the current stroke care continuum is still full of inefficiencies that cause the loss of precious time at many stages of care.
Many companies are working to streamline the triage that happens once a suspected stroke patient arrives at the emergency department—to rule in stroke and determine whether it is ischemic or hemorrhagic because a treatment for one can be fatal for the other. Several companies are working to make CT scans more rapidly informative, with AI tools.
Others are working in the prehospital market where the ability for first responders to identify stroke might prevent the delays occasioned by the patient being taken to a hospital that’s not a stroke center, a situation that ultimately necessitates transporting the patient to the right hospital, but only after precious time has been lost.
