[MUSIC]
[DR. MICHAEL FRANKEL] Senator Coverdell died of a massive stroke in the year 2000. As a result of that, Congress
put together a grant to the CDC to fund four states, they called it the Paul Coverdell
National Acute Stroke Registry, and that program was instrumental in driving forward how we
work with hospitals to improve processes. The Coverdell Registry was really about two
things and has been since its inception nearly 15 years ago. It’s about collecting data
about patients and their care and using that data to drive the process of improvement,
which means shortening those times to the CT scanner and shortening those times to treatment.
One of the real problems with American health care is how siloed data systems are. The pre-hospital
data collection system, which may be sophisticated now, is not talking to the hospital system,
is not talking to other entities in the post-hospital phase. Because there is no lateral integration,
it’s very hard for a paramedic, an EMT, to know whether his diagnosis was accurate,
because his data system is not linked to the hospital system. That’s such a simple issue,
and something we’re trying to tackle now is to break down those barriers and create
linkages between those data collection systems that are in the pre-hospital setting with
those that are in the hospital setting like the Coverdell Program.
Understanding the components of better care, faster care, which includes faster diagnostic
services, understanding that data and how to change your system, making sure treatments
are provided when indicated means that more patients have improvement and more patients
have fewer recurrent strokes and complications of care.
As the lead neurologist for the Coverdell Program in Georgia, my job has been to engage
hospitals in being interested in participating in our registry. That means that they have
to do the extra work. The hospital leadership has to embrace the importance of setting aside
resources—people to collect information about the process of patient care—and then
analyze that data, meet with a multidisciplinary team on a frequent basis, use that data to
then drive changes in the system. The vast majority that have really embraced
the concepts that are contained within the Coverdell Program have seen great benefits.
The Coverdell Program has quite literally saved lives. The data that we have shows that
mortality, or death rates, are less from stroke in the communities around hospitals that provide
this type of care. It is 20 percent less in hospitals that are part of the Coverdell Stroke Registry.
The Coverdell Program is really trying to
do those things: to connect the continuum of care so that physicians can have more information
rather than less information and we can make the right decisions every time.