[Stroke management in a stroke unit with rural catchment area]

The experiences of a rural stroke unit since 1997 are reported. A special referral concept was developed with the emergency services and hospitals of the region. As a result, 35% of patients arrived in the stroke unit within 3 hours after onset of stroke symptoms. This corresponds with the data from larger cities. The major peculiarity of the Günzburg Stroke Unit is that, after emergency diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, 41% of the patients with mainly internistic problems were transferred to another regional hospital and only 40% were admitted to the inpatient stroke unit. Moreover, among these were an above-average proportion of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (24% of the inpatients in 1998), and complete acute treatment and rehabilitation were carried out in the same hospital according to an integrative treatment concept. Since 1997, the average hospitalization duration decreased from 11.4 days to 5.9 days and the number of patients per month increased to an average of 22.3. The total hospitalization duration--including inpatient rehabilitation--was 33.9 days. All in all, a comparably good stroke treatment thus is possible outside urban regions.