Mayo Clinic designated Comprehensive Stroke Center

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mayo Clinic's stroke center has earned Comprehensive Stroke Center certification by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Only five other stroke centers in the state of Florida have received this designation.

The center, which is currently located at St. Luke's Hospital, is also certified as a Primary Stroke Center, a distinction it first received from The Joint Commission in December 2004. Both designations will remain when the center relocates to the Mayo Clinic hospital, which opens in April 2008.

"This certification, along with our certification from the Joint Commission, is continued recognition of our commitment to provide the best and latest care for stroke patients," says Mayo Clinic neurologist James Meschia, M.D., the stroke center's medical director. "Part of what distinguishes a comprehensive stroke center from other facilities is its diagnostic capabilities and advanced treatments for routine brain attacks as well as complex stroke cases."

The clinic's stroke program began at St. Luke's in 2003 with the mission to provide the best care to every patient through clinical practice, research and education. The program includes a multidisciplinary team of physicians from emergency medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, neuropsychology and interventional radiology as well as nursing and various rehabilitation services, pharmacy, radiology and social work.

Each year about 700,000 people experience a stroke nationwide. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in adults. Last year, more than 400 stroke patients were treated by Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, which continues to expand and enhance its stroke services.

In February 2007, Mayo Clinic unveiled a NeuroICU - a specialized critical care unit that works with other departments to treat devastating brain and nervous system injuries including severe ischemic stroke, brain hemorrhage, and other injuries.

The clinic is doubling its interventional neuroradiology staff and, later this month, will welcome a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon to its team. Dr. Ricardo Hanel, who trained at the renowned Barrow Neurological Institute and at the University of Buffalo with Dr. Nick Hopkins, considered the father of endovascular neurosurgery, will specialize in delicate pre- and post-stroke procedures including placement of tiny wire coils within cerebral aneurysms and opening clogged arteries in the brain with wire mesh tubes known as stents.

Mayo Clinic's stroke center continues to make strides in treating patients with the emergency clot-busting tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), a proven therapy for lessening the severity of the stroke in select patients who receive it within three hours of onset of symptoms. Since 2004, use of the drug at Mayo Clinic increased more than 500 percent, thanks in part to the staff's prompt diagnosis of stroke patients in the emergency department.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration administers Florida's $16 billion Medicaid program, licenses and regulates more than 32,000 health care facilities and 37 health maintenance organizations, and publishes health care data and statistics.

# # #

To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news2007-jax. MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com) is available as a resource for your health stories.

###

To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.