Stroke Care Using a Hub and Spoke Model with Telemedicine

Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. On average, someone has a stroke every 40 seconds. The gaps for patients diagnosed with a stroke are the availability of physicians who specialize in stroke care and access to evidence-based stroke care. Telemedicine has assisted in bridging this gap to provide effective stroke treatment. The purpose of this article is to describe how the implementation of a hub and spoke model using telemedicine has assisted in increasing patient access to neurology expertise and receiving evidence-based treatment of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, thereby improving patient outcomes.