The research presented at the International Stroke Conference was results from leading–edge clinical trial on the advancement of telemedicine on the nation’s first mobile stroke ambulance – the UTHealth Mobile Stroke Unit.

Tzu–Ching Wu, MD, assistant professor of neurology and director of the telemedicine program at McGovern Medical School, was first author of “Telemedicine Can Replace the Neurologist on a Mobile Stroke Unit,” which was presented at the conference and published concurrently in the journal Stroke.

Simultaneous and independent telemedicine vascular neurologist and onboard vascular neurologist assessment was attempted in 174 patients. In 4 patients (2%), the telemedicine vascular neurologist could not make a decision because of technical problems.

Wu reported that the results of the randomized study showed that a remote telemedicine vascular neurologist and the onboard neurologist agreed 88 percent of the time on whether to administer the clot–busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). That agreement is comparable to two neurologists assessing the same patient in the emergency center.

“Ours is the first study to evaluate whether a telemedicine vascular neurologist can make accurate decisions on tPA administration in the prehospital setting,” the authors wrote. “Our findings are important because telemedicine is being used by other mobile stroke units as the primary means of assessment and decision making.”