Stroke affects 2-3 per 100,000 children annually. Timely diagnosis is vital to provide the highest quality care to pediatric stroke patients. The establishment of stroke activation protocols for children has led to improvements in care for pediatric stroke across numerous centers, expediting time to imaging and treatment.

We performed a retrospective analysis of stroke activations from our center between September 2016 and January 2020 (N=88). We measured the time from triage with a nurse to MRI in these cases. Furthermore, we wanted to determine if NIH-SS score, hours from last known well, or age of the patient resulted in differences in time from presentation to time to imaging.

Linear regression with sample T-test and scatter plots were created.

The mean age at time of presentation 10.8 years (SD 6.38). Mean NIH-SS was 5.1 (SD 5.4). Time from presentation to triage to imaging was 141.3 minutes (SD 96.8).

There was no association of age (p=0.398) or stroke scale score (p=0.929) with time to imaging.

It took on average 2.2 hours from the time of presentation in triage to obtain imaging in children presenting to the Children’s Mercy Emergency Department and designated as stroke alerts. Age and the severity of stroke alert score had no significant effect on the time to imaging (p=0.398 and p=0.929). Continuing to optimize the stroke protocol for use in the ER and further training of staff on the importance of recognizing childhood stroke is an ongoing need to provide the highest quality stroke care to these patients.