By Ben Sutherly
The Columbus Dispatch Sunday May 26, 2013 6:41 AM
Far from the hospital-building boom in Columbus, a far less visible but no less fierce battle between OhioHealth and Ohio State University is sweeping the states towns and smaller cities.
Its a race to bring technology to rural Ohio that can save the lives of stroke patients.
Neurologists in Columbus can peer into patients eyes, listen to their heartbeats and study brain scans taken at hospitals from Findlay to Portsmouth and then consult with emergency-department doctors there to determine the best treatment.
Quick, decisive care is imperative. In patients experiencing a typical ischemic stroke, the brain ages 3.6 years each hour without treatment.
Ohio States Wexner Medical Center, which started its stroke telemedicine network two years ago, now has 20 locations in addition to its campus hub. OhioHealth, which started its network in late 2010, has 19 stroke telemedicine locations statewide in addition to hubs at Riverside Methodist Hospital and Grant Medical Center in Columbus.
And theres more courting afoot. Ohio State anticipates a total of 25 sites within three months; OhioHealth says it hopes to create a network of 30 to 35 hospitals.
The growth in stroke networks mirrors a nationwide trend, and in Columbus, each hospital system brings considerable resources to the table.
OhioHealth provides the most stroke telemedicine care in the region by far, logging 1,761 stroke telemedicine consults as of Thursday, more than two times as many as Ohio States 837 as of last Monday. Mount Carmel Health System does not have a stroke telemedicine network. I do very much get the sense that theres competition between Ohio State and OhioHealth, said Chip Hubbs, the CEO of Memorial Hospital of Union County, which just announced a partnership with Ohio State after considering a similar deal with OhioHealth.
Excerpt from:
Stroke care expands to rural areas