Developing NWO Navigate: An App for Navigating Stroke Care

Abstract

BackgroundA coordinated system of care is essential to provide timely access to treatment for patients who present with a suspected acute stroke. In Northwestern Ontario (NWO), Canada, resources are limited and healthcare providers often must transfer stroke patients to different hospital locations to access to care within recommended timeframes. However, healthcare providers, who are often situated temporarily in NWO or provide care remotely, may lack sufficient information about which transfer route would be the most efficient and appropriate for the circumstance. Suboptimal decision-making may lead to multiple transfers before reaching definitive stroke care, resulting in poor outcomes and additional cost to the patient and the healthcare system. To address these issues, a comprehensive geomapping navigation and estimation application “NWO Navigate” was developed to improve timely access to definitive care. NWO Navigate uses a database to store and retrieve information about stroke services, historical emergency services data, Google Maps API, and OpenWeatherMap APIs to determine routing to definitive care facility.ResultsThe approach involved a retrospective simulation study for development of a geomapping system. Historical data from land and air emergency medical services of previous patient transportation times between hospital locations was collected and processed. This data was used to develop a prediction model using machine learning methods and incorporated into a mobile application. The aim of the application is to aid healthcare providers by presenting the best possible transfer options for a stroke patient based on the circumstances such as last time the patient was known to be well, patient location, treatment options, imaging availability.ConclusionThe obtained experimental results demonstrate that the proposed application has the potential to be a significant tool for healthcare providers navigating stroke care in NWO, impacting patient care and outcomes. The next step for the application is to undergo usability testing with the end-users to ensure the tool provides the assistance needed when caring for a stroke patient.