BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Telestroke networks support screening for patients with emergent large-vessel occlusions who are eligible for endovascular thrombectomy. Ideal triage processes within telestroke networks remain uncertain. We characterize the impact of implementing a routine spoke hospital CTA protocol in our integrated telestroke network on transfer and thrombectomy patterns. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A protocol-driven CTA process was introduced at 22 spoke hospitals in November 2017. We retrospectively identified prospectively collected patients who presented to a spoke hospital with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores ≥6 between March 1, 2016 and March 1, 2017 (pre-CTA), and March 1, 2018 and March 1, 2019 (post-CTA). We describe the demographics, CTA utilization, spoke hospital retention rates, emergent large-vessel occlusion identification, and rates of endovascular thrombectomy. RESULTS: There were 167 patients pre-CTA and 207 post-CTA. The rate of CTA at spoke hospitals increased from 15% to 70% (P
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Yu, A. T., Regenhardt, R. W., Whitney, C., Schwamm, L. H., Patel, A. B., Stapleton, C. J., … Leslie-Mazwi, T. M. (2021). CTA protocols in a Telestroke network improve efficiency for both spoke and hub hospitals. In American Journal of Neuroradiology (Vol. 42, pp. 435–440). American Society of Neuroradiology. https://doi.org/10.3174/AJNR.A6950
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