Background and Purpose: Ischemic stroke is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The time from stroke onset to treatment impacts clinical outcome. Here, we examined whether changing a triage model from “drip and ship” to “mothership” yielded significant reductions of onset-to-groin time (OGT) in patients receiving EVT and onset-to-needle time (ONT) in IVT-treated patients, compared to before FAST-PLUS test implementation. We also investigated whether the new triage improved clinical outcomes.Methods: In a before/after multicenter study, we evaluated the effects of changing the prehospital triage system for suspected stroke patients in the Moravian–Silesian region, Czech Republic. In the new system, the validated FAST PLUS test is used to differentiate patients with suspected large vessel occlusion and triage-positive patients are transported directly to the CSC. Time metrics and patient data were obtained from the regional EMS database and SITS database.Results: For EVT patients, the median OGT was 213 min in 2015 and 142 min in 2018, and the median TT was 142 min in 2015 and 47 min in 2018. For tPA patients, the median ONT was 110 min in 2015 and 109 min in 2018, and the median TT was 41 min in 2015 and 48 min in 2018. Clinical outcome did not significantly change. The percentages of patients with favorable clinical outcome (mRS 0–2) were comparable between 2015 and 2018: 60 vs. 59% in tPA patients and 40 vs. 44% in EVT patients.Conclusions: The new prehospital triage has yielded shorter OGTs for EVT patients. No changes were found in the onset-to-needle time for IVT-treated patients, or in the clinical outcome at 3 months after stroke onset.

Aim: Pre-hospital triage by paramedics could determine which patients qualify for direct transport to comprehensive stroke centres for mechanical thrombectomy. For triage to be successful, paramedics have to be able to identify major neurological impairments. The aim of our study was to determine inter-rater reliability between paramedics and stroke neurologists in identifying severe hemiparesis in acute stroke pat lents. Methods: In this prospective, multicentre study, 225 paramedics from Emergency Medical Services were taught via e-learning to distinguish between mild and severe hemiparesis. Inter-rater agreement between paramedics and stroke specialists in evaluating the degree of hemiparesis (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS], items 5 and 6, scoring 0-2 [none or mild] vs. 3-4 [severe]) was assessed using the unweighted K index. Results: Over the course of 10 months in 2016, 402 consecutive patients (average age 75 years) were evaluated for the presence of hemiparesis by paramedics during pre-hospital care and by stroke neurologists immediately after stroke centre admission. The total agreement between the paramedics and neurologists in their evaluations of severe hemiparesis or monoparesis was moderate: K 0.43 (95% Cl 0.36-0.50). Conclusion: We found moderate reproducibility of the identification of severe hemiparesis in acute stroke patients when assessed by paramedics in a pre-hospital setting. Better education for paramedics is needed before implementing a change in transport triage based on their assessment of severity of neurological deficit.