Patients reaching the hospitals with symptoms suggestive of a stroke require quick expert assessment and treatment to put a halt to brain damage, which could save their lives. Yet most hospitals don’t have round-the-clock stroke care teams. So, to make up for this shortage of expert care many U.S. hospitals offer telemedicine consultation from stroke specialists at times located hundreds of miles away.

According to a newly published study the individuals receiving stroke care at facilities offering consultation via stroke telemedicine, called telestroke, recover better than patients receiving stroke care at places without such services, as mentioned by researchers in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and colleagues.

This study was published online in JAMA Neurology and reveals that patients getting care at hospitals offering telemedicine for stroke assessment get superior care. They also are more likely to survive strokes than patients visiting similar hospitals without telestroke services.

This study evaluates telestroke services that allow hospitals without local expertise in treating strokes to help patients connect with neurologists specializing in treating stroke.

Off-site experts use videos to virtually examine individuals who have symptoms suggesting stroke, analyze radiology tests, and recommend the best treatment.

The usage of remote stroke assessments is becoming popular. Telestroke is now used in one-third of U.S. hospitals. Though evaluations of its impact across a wide range of hospitals in limited.

Ateev Mehrotra associate professor of health care policy and of medicine at HMS and study senior author said that their study findings give significant evidence that telestroke improves care and saves lives.

The researchers made a comparison of outcomes and 30-day survival among 150,000 patients suffering from stroke being treated at more than 1,200 U.S. hospitals. Half of them offered telestroke consults and the other half did not.