The Mount Sinai Hospital, a leader in stroke treatment—and the first Joint Commission-certified comprehensive stroke center in New York State—continues to push the boundaries of research and clinical care.
“We have won high marks for the rapid response we’re able to deliver, particularly to complex stroke patients who need endovascular intervention, and for our commitment to community outreach and education,” says Stanley Tuhrim, MD, Professor and Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs, Department of Neurology, and Director of the Stroke Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Experts estimate that up to 80 percent of strokes can be prevented by weight loss, healthy eating habits, exercise, not smoking, and maintaining a normal blood pressure. When strokes occur, however, the amount of time it takes to receive proper treatment is crucial to the patient’s survival and ability to recover brain function. Ischemic strokes that stem from blocked blood vessels in the brain comprise the vast majority of strokes; a smaller percentage are hemorrhagic, which occur when a blood vessel ruptures in the brain or on its surface.
Mount Sinai’s Stroke Center averages 63 minutes between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and the start of an endovascular vessel recanalization, which reopens the blood supply to the brain when a patient has an ischemic stroke. This compares to the national average of 109 minutes at more than 2,400 hospitals that participated in the Get with the Guidelines stroke program through the American Heart Association.
In addition, Mount Sinai belongs to a network of 25 regional coordinating centers known as StrokeNet, organized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2013. The goal of StrokeNet is to develop and perform clinical trials of promising new treatments for stroke patients or those who are at risk for stroke.
Under Dr. Tuhrim, Mount Sinai has assembled a widely acclaimed team of professionals with a vast range of competencies and skill sets to manage the Mount Sinai Stroke Center. The stroke team includes vascular neurologists, neurointensivists, neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, emergency medicine physicians, rehabilitation specialists, social workers, and a dedicated clinical nursing staff.
Sonia Nelson, MSN, BSN, RN, a Clinical Nurse Manager in Neuroscience Services, says, “Every team member knows we can’t work in silos. Because every minute is critical, we need to be well informed, and that means constantly communicating.”
Mount Sinai has pioneered the use of mechanical thrombectomy devices, also known as stent retrievers, which slip a wire mesh around the clot and pull it out through a long microcatheter, restoring the flow of blood. These advanced procedures are frequently done in conjunction with the intravenous administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a clot-busting medication for acute ischemic stroke that must be started within three to four-and-a-half hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. As part of its ongoing research, the Mount Sinai Stroke Center is in the final stages of evaluating the administration of tPA through a catheter directly into a ventricle in the brain in order to dissolve clots in patients with intracerebral bleeding.
Other Health System hospital campuses have also been recognized for excellence in stroke care. Mount Sinai Queens was named an Advanced Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission and a Designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health—the only hospital in Queens to receive this dual recognition. Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai Roosevelt, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel Brooklyn also have Designated Stroke Centers.