Stroke Center

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in South Carolina. No one understands this statistic better than Robert J. Adams, MS, MD, the endowed chair for Health Sciences South Carolina’s Stroke Center. A neurologist who has focused his career on this deadly disease and how to prevent and treat it, Dr. Adams is passionate about ensuring that every South Carolinian has 24/7 access to acute stroke care. So passionate, in fact, that he is leading a unique effort that’s using telemedicine to link small and rural hospitals with experts in stroke care at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). The program is called REACH, short for Remote Evaluation of Acute Ischemic Stroke.

“Often stroke victims in rural communities are at disadvantage because expert stroke care is hours away,” says Dr. Adams. “Through the REACH program, rural hospitals can partner with MUSC and get immediate access to stroke specialists, who with the help of the Internet, assist in the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke. Working closely with local hospitals, we hope to return more patients to pre-stroke health.”

The REACH program also will help address health disparities in South Carolina. Although strokes occur among all races of men and women, African Americans experience a greater incidence of stroke. Greater access to expert care should help African Americans living in rural communities.

The REACH program is currently based at MUSC, but there are plans for similar networks in the Midlands through Palmetto Health and the University of South Carolina, and in the Upstate through Greenville Hospital University Medical Center.

Dr. Adams says this is just the beginning of an aggressive campaign to reverse South Carolina’s troubling stroke statistics. “Stroke is 90 percent preventable. Reducing risk factors, education, prevention, treatment-appropriate rehabilitation—we’ve got to do all of these things to stop stroke.”