Practical Use of a Communication Application on Mobile Devices by Our Stroke Team

To describe our 1-year experience of the practical use of a mobile communication application by our stroke team.

The mobile Join application (Allm Inc., Tokyo, Japan) was introduced into our stroke team for the purpose of immediate sharing of the patient information. We analyzed the usage situation for 1 year after the introduction of Join, particularly its efficacy in improving the door-to-puncture time (D2P) for thrombectomy cases, and reported our inter-hospital collaboration with the use of Join.

The total number of events notified by Join was 337, and they included acute stroke potentially leading to reperfusion therapy in 23% (76 events), head trauma in 14%, brain hemorrhage in 12%, other infarction in 10%, subarachnoid hemorrhage in 8%, and the others in 34%. The information of the patients was shared among the team members before arrival to our hospital in 42% of acute stroke cases. Of 31 patients undergoing mechanical thrombectomy, the median interval between arrival and groin puncture for the directly transported patients with/without pre-hospital information was 77.5 min/87 min, respectively, whereas that of the patients transferred from primary hospitals with/without pre-hospital information was 19 min/71 min (p <0.0001), respectively, demonstrating the efficacy of information sharing in advance through Join in improving the timing of endovascular therapy. For inter-hospital collaboration using the telestroke system, we concluded the partnership agreement with three local primary hospitals by communication via Join at a reasonable cost.

Active and effective utilization of the mobile Join application for communication by our stroke team was demonstrated, and it is expected to promote inter-hospital collaboration in stroke treatment.