TELESTROKE:
Thanks to Telemedicine, Jack
Porter is ‘One of the Lucky Ones’
Telemedicine connected Jack Porter in Bisbee to a stroke
specialist at Mayo Clinic Hospital – Phoenix. For Porter, a lifethreatening event turned into “a stroke of luck.”
J
ack Porter isn’t one to admit he had a
stroke three years ago.
“I didn’t have a stroke,” he will tell you. “I had
a stroke of luck.”
Mr. Porter, who has lived in Bisbee since he
was two weeks old, was unable to talk or
move his left leg or left arm when he arrived
at Copper Queen Community Hospital’s
emergency room. Daniel
Roe, MD, chief medical
“It works. It saves
officer and director of
people’s lives.”
emergency services and
telemedicine at Copper
Jack Porter
Queen, ordered a CT
Bisbee, Arizona
scan that showed a clot
forming on the right side
of Mr. Porter’s brain.
But there was no neurologist at the hospital
to advise what to do next. And that’s what led
to Mr. Porter’s “stroke of luck.”
Dr. Roe was able to contact a stroke
specialist at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in
Phoenix, and transmit Mr. Porter’s scan to
the specialist via the Mayo Clinic telestroke
network. A live audio-video telemedicine
assessment swiftly followed. Based on what
Dr. Roe told him about Mr. Porter’s condition
and what he saw on the clinical video
examination and scan, the Mayo specialist
recommended immediate treatment with an
injectable “clot-busting” drug called TPA.
Within 15 minutes, Mr. Porter was able to get
up off his ER bed and walk.
24
“It works. It saves people’s lives,” Mr. Porter
says of the Mayo Clinic telestroke network.
“Thanks to telemedicine, I was one of the
lucky ones. I also have to thank our local
emergency responders. They arrived within
about a minute and a half of my call. The
people at Copper Queen – without everybody
working together, I wouldn’t have been so
lucky.”
In 2009, Copper Queen joined with hospitals
in Douglas, Benson, Willcox, and Safford
to form the Southern Arizona Telemedicine
Alliance. With funding from UnitedHealthcare,
telemedicine equipment was installed at each
site, with the specific goal of improving stroke
care for patients in those communities.
Dr. Roe describes Mr. Porter’s experience
as “a really dramatic rescue. Bisbee is a
population of about 5,500, and we have a
very nice set of internists and family practice
physicians, but almost no specialists, and no
neurologist.
“With telemedicine, we’re able to bring
specialists into the room with the patient,”
Dr. Roe says. “It makes a dramatic difference
in the options our patie