Impact of COVID-19 on Stroke Workflow: Assessment from Comprehensive Hospitals in Connecticut
Shashank Shekhar, MD, MS
Stroke management requires quick and timely evaluation by medical personnel and transfer to a primary stroke center to provide appropriate medical care. The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recently revised the stroke guidelines in 2019 to reflect the recent advancement in clinical research to clinical practice. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic started in the United States in January 2020, the whole medical system came under severe strain. Around 72% of United States adults were no longer going to public places, including hospitals, to avoid COVID-19 exposure.
This study estimates this decline in stroke volume in the Comprehensive Stroke Centers (CSC) in Connective and eventually aims to increase public awareness. The aims of the study were: compare the volume of stroke codes before and during the COVID-19 local spread; describe the demographics and clinical characteristics of patients presented with acute stroke-like symptoms during this pandemic; and find the association between the onset of the pandemic and acute stroke metrics and outcomes.
This study is a retrospective pre and during event cohort analysis and was approved by the Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) Institutional Review Board with a waiver of informed consent. The date was including from pre-pandemic cohort and pandemic cohort from 2019 and corresponding months in 2020. The number of stroke codes at three hospitals was analyzed from January 1 to April 28, 2020, and compared from the previous year.