3 CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES UPDATE SUMMER 2018 CENTERING ON STROKE SURVIVAL Meet Maryland’s A-Team in Acute Stroke Care 3 CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 By any measure and at any age, strokes are deadly serious. Currently the fifth leading cause of mortality in the nation, these “brain attacks” kill about 140,000 Americans each year— about one death every four minutes. In dollars and cents, the US loses $34 billion annually due to stroke, when the costs of health care services, medications, and lost productivity due to disability are added up. Fortunately, for stroke sufferers throughout the state of Maryland, their best chance for survival and recovery is close at hand. The University of Maryland Medical Center Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) is nationally recognized as the premier center in the state dedicated to comprehensive care of patients with complex cerebrovascular disease and acute stroke conditions. Due to its exceptional history of providing advanced cerebrovascular care, CSC originally was designated as the state’s first certified Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission (TJC). Then in 2014, the center joined an elite group of medical institutions in achieving TJC’s Advanced Certification as a Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC), a new designation awarded to fewer than 130 stroke centers in the United States. The center also received a similar designation from the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS). To become a Comprehensive Stroke Center, medical institutions must demonstrate utilization of state- of-the-art technology (including advanced imaging capabilities), 24/7 availability of specialized treatments, and staff with the unique education and competencies to care for complex stroke patients. “As a stroke center, we are leaders in Maryland,” says Marcella A. Wozniak, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Medical Director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center. “One of our central missions here is that anyone in the state who is eligible for stroke therapies can be identified and transferred here to our CSC for treatment.” Going to ‘BAT’ for Stroke Patients Today, UMMC’s CSC is one of the busiest in the region, receiving 1,600 calls annually from area physicians seeking consultation with faculty experts, while providing the most advanced and innovative treatments for more than 1,200 patients with neurovascular disease every year. Managing the front line of these efforts is CSC’s Brain Attack Team (BAT), a multispecialty group created to rapidly evaluate and treat patients with vascular causes of neurological disorders around the clock, seven days a week. Staffed by board-certified faculty from multiple specialties who can provide rapid evaluation and complex lifesaving interventions for patients, BAT counts among its ranks highly skilled vascular neurologists, emergency physicians, neuro-intensivists, neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons, interventional neuroradiologists, nurses and other professionals. BAT’s patient response format is modeled after the concept of the “golden hour” pioneered at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center. With two million neurons dying every minute, literally every second counts for stroke patients. In response, BAT’s accelerated continuum of care can begin well in advance of a stroke patient arriving at UMMC for treatment. The team collectively works as a statewide and even national resource for primary stroke center physicians, providing In UMMC’s Interventional Radiology Suite, SCS Brain Attack Team faculty Marcella Wozniak, MD, PhD (L) and Michael Phipps, MD, MHS (R) discuss the post-procedure care of a patient following a successful mechanical thrombectomy.