Stroke management: beginnings.

This article outlines the evolution of a stroke program at one large midwestern tertiary care hospital. Implementation of unit-based care coordination, a standard order set, a clinical pathway, a nurse case manager, and ongoing multidisciplinary review were some of the strategies used to demonstrate improvement in outcome measures. Improvements were documented, including computed tomography (CT) scans being performed more quickly when patients arrived at the Emergency Department, decreased costs, decreased readmission rates, and reduced length of stay.