Abstract 154: Acute Stroke Recognition by Paramedics after Regionalization of Stroke Care: Outcomes Based Study

Background: Early evidence supports preferential transport of patients with stroke symptoms to primary stroke centers. While validated stroke tools exist for screening of stroke symptoms in the prehospital setting, system wide triage performance of prehospital providers in a regionalized system has not been reported. The objective of this study is to assess the diagnostic ability of prehospital providers, before and after regionalization of care, using outcomes based approach. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of all patients who were transported to hospitals in two Northern California counties by providers of a single EMS agency during a three year period. One county remained non-regionalized (NR) during the study period and the other initiated and completed regionalization(R) of the system during the study period. Patient demographic data, prehospital provider clinical assessment was obtained from the computerized prehospital transport records and physician diagnosis was obtained from statewide a...