Toshiba Medical is highlighting the money savings realized by one of its customer sites using its Aquilion One flagship CT scanner for stroke care.
Kaleida Health's Stroke Care Center (SCC) at Gates Vascular Institute in Buffalo, NY, has achieved more than $5.4 million in cost savings by using Aquilion One to diagnose stroke care. A multiyear study demonstrated dramatic improvements in patient outcomes, with a reduction in patient length of stay of up to one full day and better discharge dispositions, according to the company.
Researchers at SCC quantified the benefits of changing its clinical pathway for stroke diagnosis to leverage Aquilion One, comparing datasets from various time periods. The goal of the changes was to get patients from the door of the emergency room to CT imaging in 10 minutes or less.
The group tracked outcomes and cost savings for three ICD-9-CM codes related to stroke care:
- 434.91 -- Unspecified cerebral artery occlusion with cerebral infarction
- 435.9 -- Unspecified transient cerebral ischemia
- 434.11 -- Cerebral embolism with cerebral infarction
For example, for cerebral embolism with cerebral infarction, patient length of stay fell from an average 7.3 days before the use of Aquilion One to 5.56 days at the end of the study, when Aquilion One was being used.
The changes led to $2 million in annual savings in the last year of the study and more than $5.4 million over the entire study time frame, the researchers found.
