Hilary Wong
Friday, November 14, 2014
A special ward for stroke patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital has cut by 13 minutes the time to administer life-saving injections.
That advance follows a 24-hour intravenous thrombolytic service set up in 2009 for stroke patients at the hospital.
A support team was established two years later.
Neurology consultant Fong Wing-chi said that before acute stroke ward H6 was set up the time between a patient being admitted to an emergency room and receiving the injection was 74 minutes. Now it is 61 minutes.
"Nearly 40 percent of stroke patients can receive treatment within 60 minutes of arriving at the accident and emergency department," Fong added.
And from December last year to last month, over 73 percent of stroke patients received treatment in the stroke ward.
Benefits were being seen in the proportion of patients being discharged directly from the hospital after treatment, rising to 52.8 percent in December 2012 to November 2013 compared to 41 percent from December 2010 to November 2011.
Also on the special ward, nurses are ready to provide thrombolysis service at any time, Fong said.
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