A multidisciplinary approach in the emergency department, aimed at helping physicians evaluate and diagnose the occurrence of ischemic stroke in young women, may improve outcomes, according to a recent study.
The study appears in the January 2018 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).
Multiple opportunities exist for future research aimed at improving detection and treatment of young women with ischemic stroke, the study suggests. The authors propose that work aimed at creating and applying clinical decision rules, educational campaigns designed to educate young women and emergency medicine providers, and consideration of preventive strategies that might be applied in the emergency department may ultimately lead to interventions that can improve outcomes in young women with ischemic stroke.
The findings support the need to increase transparency and align incentives so that efficient, cost-effective, high-quality, definitive patient-centered care can be provided for all patients, explains a media release from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.
“As with other thromboembolic disease processes, this review stresses the importance of recognizing non-atherosclerotic risk factors in premenopausal women that may predispose them to stroke. While future research in predictive modeling may lead to a decision rule that formally includes some or all of these risk factors, exploring for their existence in young women may help prompt diagnostic consideration for stroke, even with subtler clinical presentations.”
“As machine learning and other artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated with the electronic medical record, I envision a future in which clinicians may be prompted to consider stroke in young woman, based on the presence of these risk factors,” the authors—led by Bernard P. Chang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine, at Columbia University Medical Center, New York—note in the study, per the release.
[Source(s): Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, EurekAlert]
