St. Mary's Hospital reduces door-to-needle time from 118 to 40 minutes with Sevaro teleneurology AI

St. Mary's Hospital had a door-to-needle time of 118 minutes for stroke patients — far above best practice benchmarks. Stroke care required routing through call centers before reaching a neurologist, adding critical delays. The hospital also underutilized thrombolytics, averaging only 1 tPA administration per month in 2019.

St. Mary's partnered with Sevaro in Q4 2019, deploying their teleneurology platform to connect ED teams directly with vascular neurologists within 45 seconds, eliminating call center intermediaries. Sevaro implemented AI software to assist clinicians in identifying strokes on brain imaging and introduced structured stroke order sets to standardize guideline-directed care.

Door-to-needle time dropped from 118 minutes to a 40-minute average by 2022, with a best time of 20 minutes. tPA utilization increased 83% (from 1/month to 22/month), with zero missed eligible patients. St. Mary's earned 2021 Silver Plus with Honor Roll recognition from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association.

• Removing call center intermediaries and enabling direct ED-to-neurologist connections can dramatically compress time-to-treatment in stroke care.
• Structured stroke order sets drive consistent adherence to guideline-directed therapies, improving both outcomes and discharge quality.
• AI-assisted brain imaging review complements teleneurology to accelerate diagnostic confidence at the point of care.