Telestroke Networks Studied for Alleviating Disparities in Stroke Treatment and Recovery

July 14, 2025—The Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS) announced findings from three studies that explored the differences in treatment and recovery options for patients across racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines in a large telestroke network in Pennsylvania and a university medical center in Rhode Island.

According to SNIS, telestroke treatment may help address geographic and racial disparities in stroke treatment by bringing services closer to patients in historically underserved communities. The studies were presented at the SNIS 22nd annual meeting.

Basel Musmar, MD, who served as the primary author of the first two studies, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Joshua Feler, MD, the primary author of the third study, is a neurosurgery resident at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

As summarized in the SNIS press release, in the first study, investigators reviewed medical records for 7,947 patients with suspected ischemic stroke in a large telestroke network. The study found:

• Men and women in the study were equally likely to receive thrombectomy.
• 13% of women versus 15% of men received tissue plasminogen activator (tPA).
• Women and men had similar time in the hospital for treatment and received similar National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores at discharge.

In the second study, investigators reviewed records from 2,952 White patients and 1,122 Black patients with suspected ischemic stroke who received telestroke care. The study found:

• Immediate care was equitable across racial groups.
• Poststroke rehabilitation outcomes differed, emphasizing the need for further research into long-term recovery and rehabilitation disparities.
• Telestroke networks can help reduce racial disparities in acute stroke care, particularly in the administration of tPA and mechanical thrombectomy.

In the third study, investigators at Brown University reviewed records for patients at a large hospital who had received thrombectomies to treat stroke and calculated how their socioeconomic status might have affected their time to stroke treatment. One half of the patients in the study received field triage. The other half of patients were sent to the nearest hospital and later transferred to a comprehensive stroke center for the procedure.

Categorizing patients’ socioeconomic status using the Area Deprivation Index tool, the investigators found the following:

• Patients of all socioeconomic levels who were able to receive field triage and were immediately routed to the correct hospital had better outcomes after thrombectomy than patients who were later transferred to a comprehensive stroke center.
• For the group of patients who had to be transferred, patients from more disadvantaged neighborhoods had a longer wait for thrombectomy and worse health after stroke.

“It’s very encouraging to see that longstanding racial and gender disparities can be potentially mitigated using telestroke treatment,” commented Dr. Musmar in the SNIS press release. “However, the reduced use of stroke treatment medication for female patients and the differences in care after hospital discharge between Black and White patients shows that we need to further investigate these issues to ensure that gender and racial factors aren’t keeping people from experiencing optimal outcomes for stroke treatment.”

Dr. Feler added, “We were excited to see how impactful field triage can be in potentially reducing disparities in poststroke health for people across the socioeconomic spectrum. Finding the right uses for this important tool can hopefully cut down the time between a stroke and the treatment that gets people back to their lives.”