Abstract
The city of Tokyo established the Tokyo Metropolitan Stroke Association Council in April 2008, and began discussions regarding the establishment of an emergency transportation system at that time. As a result, a system was introduced in March 2009 by which cases in which stroke were suspected by emergency and rescue teams were transported to the closest certified Tokyo Metropolitan Acute Stroke Care Facility. A survey was conducted of the total number of patients transported on an emergency basis in one week in the city of Tokyo one year after introduction of the system. The results of that survey verified there were no significant problems with the system with respect to such factors as the sensitivity and specificity of stroke assessment by emergency and rescue teams or the transport status of stroke patients transported to health care facilities by emergency and rescue teams. Within the time elapsed from the beginning of the attack to arrival at the hospital, the amount of time from the attack until the time the patient was discovered (time when an emergency call was made) was clearly determined to be long. Therefore this indicated the need for educational activities for providing residents with information regarding strokes and their symptoms. When a similar survey was conducted two years later, the time from attack to discovery was determined to have become significantly shorter, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of educational activities deployed during that time. However, there were no significant reductions observed in the amount of time from attack to arrival at the hospital, thereby suggesting the need for actions to be taken to further shorten the amount of time elapsed from discovery to arrival at the hospital.
