Jaclyn Boorman, director of regional brain health and rehabilitation services at Island Health, says conducting a medical imaging scan on a stroke victim as soon as possible is paramount as patients can lose millions of nerve cells in the brain every minute they remain untreated.
“Brain cells die very, very quickly," she said in a news release. “You need to get those images back to the right people as soon as possible. And then, if appropriate, they need treatment as soon as possible, which in some cases means a transfer to another centre. You just need everything to be as fast and seamless as possible.”
Since August 2023, acute stroke patients throughout the Island Health region have benefited from artificial intelligence-enhanced visualization software that enables specialists to assess and act more quickly, which they say is a vital innovation.
Ischemic strokes, which occur when a clot prevents blood flow to an area of the brain, are the most common strokes assessed with the AI technology, but it's also sometimes used for hemorrhagic strokes, which involve bleeding in the brain due to a ruptured blood vessel.
The province estimates there are about 4,900 hospitalized cases of stroke in B.C. on an annual basis, with about a 13 per cent mortality rate in prevalent cases.
Currently, AI is used for patients who present to hospitals in Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River and Comox Valley, who then feed information to the Victoria-based stroke neurology team.
“[The AI-enhanced process has] flagged for us the patients who are urgent and who require attention right away,” noted Dr. Janka Hegedus, medical lead of neurology stroke on the Island. “That can be quite difficult when you’re taking care of a very diverse and very distributed population. So I think that it’s really important to help us triage and help people quickly.”
If it’s deemed that the stroke is treatable, the patient is transferred to Victoria as soon as possible.
“It detects if there is brain that can be saved,” said Hegedus in the release. “So it measures for us how big the core is – that’s the part of the brain that can’t be saved. And that’s really important for us because if there’s a big core and no area to save, then we won’t take a person out of their community when there is no need or intervention to offer.”
Today, the use of AI in stroke care is rapidly becoming a best practice at Island Health and elsewhere in Canada and beyond.
“Our whole community is really evolving with it,” noted Hegedus. “I think that’s a real positive – we can evolve and we can also give feedback when we need things to be changed.”
