Dameron Hospital | Health Outlook | Spring 2019

14 HEALTH OUTLOOK A powerful partnership SIRS also includes evaluation of the case by a collaborative, multidisciplinary team of stroke experts, so a treatment plan is ready when the patient arrives. A simultaneous page goes out to mobilize a team of responders at Stanford, including specialists in anesthesia, imaging, diagnostic radiology, critical- care nursing, pharmacy, respiratory therapy and intensive care. SIRS’ special interventional neuroradiology team care is available 24/7 to remove blood clots from a patient’s brain if that procedure is required. SIRS was created to gain every second possible between a stroke and treatment. Some interventions are only useful if performed within a particular time frame, and the accelerated transfer process improves the odds that these interventions will be effective in reducing stroke damage. Stanford’s physicians take information from CT and MRI scans and process it through a Stanford-invented computer software program that builds an image of great sensitivity and specificity that includes speed, volume and location of blood flow throughout the brain. That visual map may serve first as a guide for making treatment decisions and then serves to confirm the effects of treatment. In some cases, clots may be dissolved through the administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA)—the go-to clot-dissolving medication. In other cases, physicians called interventional neuroradiologists may have to thread a narrow tube, called a catheter, into an artery in the groin and push it up into the brain, carrying miniature treatment tools. Those tools can either grab a clot to extract it or vacuum it out. This approach is generally referred to as endovascular therapy . “Based on the excellent clinical outcomes we’ve been able to accomplish with the Stanford SIRS Program since 2015, residents who think they may be experiencing a stroke will be in excellent hands when they come to Dameron Hospital,” says Dr. Cornwell. “I think this is a great example of our commitment to improving the health of our community.” THE Stanford Stroke Center is considered a national leader in advanced stroke treatment, and Dameron Hospital’s partnership with them provides our patients with state-of-the- art stroke care. “At Stanford, an innovative, streamlined protocol called the SIRS (Stroke Interventional Radiology Service) Rapid Access Program was developed for patients being transferred from other hospitals, delivered in the fastest manner possible,” says Eric Cornwell, MD, Dameron Hospital’s Medical Director of Surgical Services. “This program’s protocol includes streamlined communications to ensure rapid acceptance to the Stanford Stroke Center for patients from hospitals like Dameron.” Dameron and Stanford Stroke Center team up for stroke care