Implementation plan for stroke telemedicine in the Valencian Region

Stroke telemedicine is a counselling modality that enables care of stroke patients at remote departmental hospitals by specialists at stroke units in reference hospitals. The planning and implementation of a hub-and-spoke telestroke network are complicated. This paper describes the implementation plan of Telestroke in the Valencian Region, Spain. A stroke telemedicine network was installed in the Valencian Region connecting the departmental hospitals with stroke teams, to the 6 public reference hospitals with a stroke unit. The implementation plan included the installation of the stroke telemedicine network with availability of connection over the internet by VPN. Strategies to ensure good …