Triage, Treatment, and Transfer: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Recommendations and Models of Nursing Care for the First 72 Hours of Admission to Hospital for Acute Stroke

Stroke, 6 January 2015

Stroke is a medical emergency and care provided in the first hours is critical in shaping patients’ long-term recovery and prognosis. There is robust evidence demonstrating significant reductions in death and disability with early interventions in acute stroke care, including antiplatelet therapy stroke unit (SU) care and thrombolysis. International clinical guidelines for stroke provide key recommendations to guide clinical practice; however, uptake of evidence-based care is variable and often less than optimal. For example, among patients with ischemic stroke, rates for treatment with intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (r-tPA) are relatively low in the USA (5%) and Australia (7%), compared with Canada (12%) and some European centers (14%).

Nurses play a pivotal role in rapid identification and triage of patients with acute stroke, initial assessment, and coordinating the timely flow of patients with acute stroke through the health system. Nurses enable delivery of relevant time critical treatments, and rapid transfer to acute SUs for ongoing assessment and provision of further treatment. Read more.