010 The melbourne mobile stroke unit substantially improves thrombolysis times and pre-hospital triage

Introduction The Melbourne mobile stroke unit (MSU) project is the first Australian pre-hospital stroke service that delivers on-scene imaging, treatment and triage. The MSU vehicle consists of a Mercedes Sprinter-5 chassis with on-board CereTom 8-slice portable CT scanner and telemedicine capabilities. On-board crew consists of a neurologist/telemedicine, nurse, radiographer and two paramedics (advanced-life-support and mobile-intensive-care). The MSU service is co-dispatched within 20 km of Royal Melbourne Hospital. We describe the service activity since project launch. Methods Data are sourced from the Melbourne MSU registry, an ongoing prospectively collected database of all MSU dispatched cases since November 2017. Results In the first 50 operational days, there were a total of n=255 dispatches (5.1/day), of which 47% of patients received on-scene attendance. On-scene CT was performed on 52% of all attendances. Of n=29 suspected ischaemic stroke cases Discussion The Melbourne MSU project shows that pre-hospital diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients is feasible and associated with substantial time saving in providing acute stroke treatment and triage. Future research will focus on optimising MSU dispatch and cost-effectiveness analysis.