Starting Friday, December 31, 2021, Specialist on Call (SOC) will be removed and replaced with the St. Joseph’s Health TeleNeurology team that consists of  Drs. Savita Kumari, Fahed Saada and Syed Shah. This is a 100% telemedicine service. The policy will be updated to go live January 1, 2022.

Please be aware of the following for Code Stroke calls for the ED and in-house:

ED Code Stroke Activated:

  1. Last known well (LKW) < 4hours– CSR will call Upstate transfer center and transfer call to the physician. (This process will stay the same). ED physician will decide on TPA with Upstate Neurologist.
  2. If patient is LKW > 4 hours the ED physician will call ##532 and discuss the case with the on-call neurologist over the phone. The neurology schedule will be posted on Intelidesk.
  3. The neurologist will decide if a video vs phone consultation is required. If video is needed, they will use ED cart which is the same for Upstate telemedicine.  We will only have one teleneurology machine in the ED, so this will reduce any confusion.
  4. The neurologist and ED physician will make recommendations for treatment/admission/and or transfer.

In-patient Code Stroke Activated: 

  1. Last known well (LKW) < 24hours– Resident will contact ##532. The resident will discuss the case with the on-call neurologist over the phone.
  2. The neurology schedule will be posted on Intelidesk.
  3. The neurologist will decide if a video vs phone consultation is required. The nursing supervisor will bring the cart for code strokes.
  4. The neurologist and on-call house staff physician will make recommendations for treatment/admission/and or transfer.

Please contact Dr. Saada at fahed.saada@sjhsyr.org with any questions.