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Zhao et al. Vessel Plus 2021;5:10 Vessel Plus
DOI: 10.20517/2574-1209.2020.77

Review Open Access

Advances in pre-hospital care - operational
experiences from the Melbourne mobile stroke unit

Henry Zhao , Bruce C. V. Campbell , Shane Foster , Michael Stephenson , Skye Coote , Francesca
2
1
1,2
2
1,2
Langenberg , Damien Easton , Geoffrey A. Donnan , Stephen M. Davis 1,#
1
1
1,#
1 Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne 3050, Australia.
2 Clinical Services, Ambulance Victoria, Melbourne 3108, Australia.
# Joint senior author.
Correspondence to: Dr. Henry Zhao, Department of Neurology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne, 300
Grattan St, Victoria, Parkville 3050, Australia. E-mail: zhaohdr@live.com
How to cite this article: Zhao H, Campbell BCV, Foster S, Stephenson M, Coote S, Langenberg F, Easton D, Donnan GA, Davis SM.
Advances in pre-hospital care-operational experiences from the Melbourne mobile stroke unit. Vessel Plus 2021;5:10.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2574-1209.2020.77
Received: 26 Nov 2020 First Decision: 18 Dec 2020 Revised: 30 Dec 2020 Accepted: 8 Jan 2021 Published: 7 Feb 2021

Academic Editor: Aaron S. Dumont Copy Editor: Xi-Jun Chen Production Editor: Yue-Yue Zhang
Received: First Decision: Revised: Accepted: Published: x

Science Editor: Copy Editor: Production Editor: Jing Yu
Abstract
Mobile stroke units (MSU) are specially designed ambulances with CT imaging capability able to provide faster
pre-hospital care to patients in the community. The Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit is the first MSU service in
the Australian region, commencing operations in 2017 in central metropolitan Melbourne. This review describes
the challenges of setting up the MSU in a unique Australian setting and initial clinical efficacy of pre-hospital
MSU treatment and triage on ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. We also discuss the current technological and
operational limitations of the MSU service and directions for future research.

Keywords: Stroke, treatment, thrombolysis, intracerebral hemorrhage

INTRODUCTION
Mobile stroke units (MSU) are pioneering services incorporating imaging capability and a specialized
stroke team in an ambulance platform in order to provide pre-hospital treatment and triage . The
[1]
[2]
Melbourne MSU launched in November 2017 and is the first operational service in Australia and the
Oceania region, following its introduction in Europe and the United States . In this review we describe
[5]
[3,4]
operationalization of the Melbourne MSU service, the primary benefits on pre-hospital management of
© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
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