South Peninsula Hospital has a new way to assess patients who may be experiencing a stroke.
The ‘tele-stroke program’ helps connect highly-trained neurologists in Anchorage or Seattle with stroke patients and their doctors in Homer.
Using a high definition camera, the neurologist is able to talk to the patient about their symptoms, assess their motor skills and make a diagnosis.
Kenny Rogers manages the South Peninsula Hospital Emergency Department, Outpatient Services and Forensics.
He says the program provides patients with high quality care, while allowing them to remain close to home.
“It links us to a neurologist in real time at the bedside. They can walk through their exam at the same time our physicians and our nurses are doing their exams,” said Rogers. “They can make the call as to whether we give medication to help break those blood clots up or whether we need to get them a higher level of care. The quicker we can make those calls, the better off the patient is going to be.”
In the month and a half since the SPH tele-stroke program began, it has been used a total of eight times.