Door-in-Door-out Times for Interhospital Transfer of Patients With Stroke

IMPORTANCE: Treatments for time-sensitive acute stroke are not available at every hospital, often requiring interhospital transfer. Current guidelines recommend hospitals achieve a door-in-door-out time of no more than 120 minutes at the transferring emergency department (ED). OBJECTIVE: To evaluate door-in-door-out times for acute stroke transfers in the American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines-Stroke registry and to identify patient and hospital factors associated with door-in-door-out times. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: US registry–based, retrospective study of patients with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke from January 2019 through December 2021 who were transferred from the ED at registry-affiliated hospitals to other acute care hospitals. EXPOSURE: Patient- and hospital-level characteristics. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary outcome was the door-in-door-out time (time of transfer out minus time of arrival to the transferring ED) as a continuous variable and a categorical variable (≤120 minutes, >120 minutes). Generalized estimating equation (GEE) regression models were used to identify patient and hospital-level characteristics associated with door-in-door-out time overall and in subgroups of patients with hemorrhagic stroke, acute ischemic stroke eligible for endovascular therapy, and acute ischemic stroke transferred for reasons other than endovascular therapy. RESULTS: Among 108 913 patients (mean [SD] age, 66.7 [15.2] years; 71.7% non-Hispanic White; 50.6% male) transferred from 1925 hospitals, 67 235 had acute ischemic stroke and 41 678 had hemorrhagic stroke. Overall, the median door-in-door-out time was 174 minutes (IQR, 116-276 minutes): 29 741 patients (27.3%) had a door-in-door-out time of 120 minutes or less. The factors significantly associated with longer median times were age 80 years or older (vs 18-59 years; 14.9 minutes, 95% CI, 12.3 to 17.5 minutes), female sex (5.2 minutes; 95% CI, 3.6 to 6.9 minutes), non-Hispanic Black vs non-Hispanic White (8.2 minutes, 95% CI, 5.7 to 10.8 minutes), and Hispanic ethnicity vs non-Hispanic White (5.4 minutes, 95% CI, 1.8 to 9.0 minutes). The following were significantly associated with shorter median door-in-door-out time: emergency medical services prenotification (−20.1 minutes; 95% CI, −22.1 to −18.1 minutes), National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score exceeding 12 vs a score of 0 to 1 (−66.7 minutes; 95% CI, −68.7 to −64.7 minutes), and patients with acute is