Excerpt from: South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) NHS Trust 2006-2007 Annual Report
Exciting new clinical developments are also underway. State of the art innovations like Brain Acoustic Monitoring (BAM) will significantly improve the way we treat stroke patients in the future – which we hope will eventually change the way strokes are treated in the pre-hospital setting throughout the UK.
... Stroke is an excellent example of where prehospital emergency care can and should be making a significant difference to patient outcome. We have already started work on developing some of the tools that could help us with this, such as Brain Acoustic Monitoring (BAM). SECAmb can provide a pioneering example in this area, with potential national implications.
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Brain Acoustic Monitoring
Work is progressing towards a trial of a portable unit that can be used to diagnose
the cause of a stroke – either a bleed or a clot. This will speed up diagnosis and
treatment, thereby reducing mortality and morbidity. Ambulance crews will be able to
pre-alert the receiving hospital about the imminent arrival of the patient, indicating
which type of stroke they have suffered, allowing early treatment to begin.