Penn Stroke Center

Our goal is to educate every patient and their family about strokes. We provide educational materials during their hospital stay, covering essential topics such as:

• When to call Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
• The importance of follow-up care after leaving the hospital
• Understanding new medications
• Recognizing symptoms and warning signs of a stroke

By providing post-stroke care, we aim to help them understand their condition, manage new medications, and take steps to prevent future strokes.

For ischemic stroke patients needing mechanical thrombectomy, “door-to-puncture” is the time from when they arrive at the hospital to when a vein artery in the groin or wrist is accessed for treatment. The quicker this happens, the better the chances for recovery. Efficient stroke care, streamlined protocols, and smooth transitions to the operating room—along with strong coordination with other hospitals—all help ensure timely treatment.

The high percentage of ischemic stroke patients who receive mechanical thrombectomy indicates how effectively we can remove clots and restore blood flow. Our skilled team often unblocks blood vessels within 120 minutes, which significantly improves recovery and outcomes.

When a patient arrives at the hospital, our goal is to restore blood flow to the brain as quickly as possible. This process, called recanalization, happens through a surgical procedure known as mechanical thrombectomy. Research shows that patients who receive this treatment within 90 minutes have a better chance of making a successful recovery. By getting patients into the operating room quickly, we can improve their chances of recovery and overall outcomes.

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s certification as a Comprehensive Stroke Center is evidence of our success in implementing the highest Joint Commission standards required to provide complex stroke care, according to nationally accepted standards and guidelines. We take this responsibility seriously and publicly report our quality outcomes. We encourage you to look at these outcomes, which reflect how well we take care of our patients and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to delivering highly effective care—every time.

• The Comprehensive Stroke Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania completes carotid endarterectomy and carotid stents. The aggregate complication rate of those who are asymptomatic is 0.00% for the years 2021-2023.
• Two faculty members have received the American Academy of Neurology Michael Pessin Stroke Leadership Award. This prestigious national award recognizes neurologists who have demonstrated a passion for learning and expanding the field of stroke research.

A stroke caused by a large blood clot has the greatest chance of causing disability or even death. Lancaster General Hospital is the first and only hospital in Lancaster County to perform mechanical thrombectomy, an advanced procedure for physically retrieving a blood clot from a brain vessel. Specially trained doctors use a catheter inserted through an artery in the groin or wrist to send a wire-caged device called a stent retriever to the site of the blocked vessel in the brain. At Lancaster General Hospital, we have procedure rooms dedicated exclusively for stroke care.

Removing a clot from the brain right away provides the best chance for a complete recovery. Having this procedure here in Lancaster eliminates the need to transport a patient to another facility out of the county for stroke treatment.

Most strokes are ischemic, meaning they’re caused by a blockage of blood flow. The approved treatment for ischemic stroke patients that arrive at the hospital within three hours of their symptoms starting is a clot-busting medication called tenecteplase (TNK). The faster a patient receives treatment with TNK, the more likely they are to have a good recovery from their stroke. Because this treatment is time sensitive, we aim to treat as many patients as safely possible within 45 minutes of their arrival in the emergency department.

Some ischemic strokes are caused by a blood clot blocking one of the large arteries in the head or neck. In cases where the clot is large and visible, we offer a procedure called thrombectomy, which involves advancing a wire from the artery in the patient’s groin to the clot in the head or neck to remove it and open the blocked artery. This procedure is proven to reduce disability after a severe stroke. This treatment is time sensitive. The faster a patient gets started with the procedure, the faster their stroke is treated. We track the time from patient arrival in the emergency department to groin puncture as a measure of our performance and aim to achieve 90 minutes or faster.

The gold standard for measuring functional outcome after a stroke is based on a scale called the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). Each patient receives a score 90 days after their stroke. Lower scores on the scale are correlated with functional independence, whereas scores higher than two are associated with greater disability. Our goal is to have a high percentage of patients with low scores, meaning, they return to a good level of function within 90 days after stroke.

Having a stroke is a new experience for most of our patients. Our goal is to provide education to every patient and family that suffers from a stroke. This helps our patients understand their stroke, new medications, and ways to prevent another stroke in the future.

We survey our patients after they leave the hospital and ask them to rank their stroke care. Reviews are based on rankings provided by about 800 patients per year.