Management of ischemic stroke in the next decade: stroke centers of excellence.

Stroke has been increasingly recognized as an important and expensive medical and societal problem during the past 10 years. Currently, organized stroke care is delivered to the American population in only a few cities and hospitals that provide an efficient system for rapid transportation, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. The Brain Attack Coalition (BAC) has recently proposed the concepts of stroke centers of excellence (akin to trauma level I centers), primary stroke centers, and comprehensive stroke center. The U.S. government, with the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry and the Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act of 2003, further supports these concepts. Herein, a discussion of the influence that the BAC, the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry, and the Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Acts of 2001 and 2003 will have on the future of stroke therapy in this country during the next 10 years is presented. Also discussed are the elements that are crucial to organized stroke care and the formation of stroke centers of excellence. These include triage and diagnosis in the field, transportation, triage and imaging in the emergency department, prompt transfer to a dedicated stroke unit with focused care, rehabilitation, manpower, prevention and research, reimbursement issues, and politics. The importance of multidisciplinary collaboration on the professional and societal levels and, finally, government- and private sector-sponsored research are also presented.