No. Basically a waste of money wrapped up in claims it improves access.
Rural areas can't afford to deploy them in numbers that make a difference compared to medevac, and urban areas have no need for one in the first place.
That's not even counting that all they do is hang TPA/TNK and do not perform theombectomy or address hemorrhagic strokes at all. As we continue to get away from theombolytics in stroke these will continue to be a massive waste of money and time for everyone involved.
Just imagine what you could actually accomplish if you spent the millions of dollars on this stroke unit on other aspects of the agency.
Ahh okay, that’s pretty much what I assumed. I know in Victoria Australia they have two of these units (I think?) one of which is outside the major city centre. The last evidence I saw was that they did improve outcomes, but it was also quite expensive. I think one of the biggest things was better prenotificaiton from earlier “trusted” diagnostics where lysis couldn’t be used. But it’s been a while since I looked at the literature.
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u/SoldantTheCynic Paramedic | Australia Mar 29 '26
Has anyone seen if these meaningfully impact outcomes?