In The Nick Of Time Citrus Memorial Hospital fights high stroke death rates with Skype-like technology.

Citrus Memorial Hospital doesn’t mess around. Thanks to the new TeleNeurology service they introduced in January, the hospital can now treat stroke patients without a neurologist on the grounds. This new service streams an on-call neurologist live onto a television screen that’s set up on a rolling cart. (And yes, they call it Sheldon, for all you Big Bang Theory fans out there.)

Citrus County has a high stroke death rate, and, though this is mostly due to the large population of elderly folks there, Citrus Memorial works to spread awareness for stroke signs and symptoms. The hospital uses talks, guest posts on their website and the acronym FAST—facial drooping, arm drift, speech changes and time—to get the word out to the community. The faster a stroke patient gets treated, the better their recovery will be.

“I think that a lot of education needs to happen in Citrus County,” says Katie Myers, director of marketing and public relations at Citrus Memorial. “We actually have a stroke committee.”

The nurse draws blood and sends it off to be tested, while the patient gets a CT scan and is then transferred to a bed with a built-in scale for taking the patient’s weight.

Within about 15 minutes, blood results are back and tPA can be administered, if needed.

Once the tPA is administered, Caron says they start seeing positive changes as soon as 30 minutes later. Not only is this practice beating the national goal in treatment time, it’s saving lives. Bazinga!