Race and Income Disparity in Ischemic Stroke Care: Nationwide Inpatient Sample Database, 2002 to 2008

We examined whether patients of particular ethnicity or income levels experienced reduced access to or delays in receiving stroke care.Methods: We studied all admissions for ischemic stroke in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database between 2002 and 2008. We used statistical models to determine whether median income or race were associated with intravenous (IV) thrombolysis treatment, in-hospital mortality, discharge disposition, hospital charges, and LOS in high- or low-volume hospitals.Results: There were a total of 477,474 patients with ischemic stroke: 10,781 (2.3%) received IV thrombolysis, and 380,400 (79.7%) were treated in high-volume hospitals. Race (P 
Source: Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research