Newswise reports that Huntsville Memorial Hospital (HMH) is proud to announce the success of a new onsite EEG program that has helped reduce emergency room patient transfers and improve access to neurological diagnostics for the Huntsville community and surrounding areas. As the only hospital within a 30-mile radius, HMH now offers critical services that previously required transfers to larger facilities in Conroe, The Woodlands, or Houston.
An EEG (electroencephalogram) is a test that measures electrical activity in the brain and is commonly used to diagnose seizures, stroke, and other neurological conditions.
Faced with a high volume of neuro-related transfers and limited access to specialty care, HMH leadership assembled a task force to study ER transfer patterns. Director of Cardiopulmonary and Emergency Management Joe Schorre said, “We looked at two years of transfer data and saw that many patients were being transferred for neuro-related issues, particularly when an EEG was needed.” He said, “Our goal was to turn those transfers into local admissions.”
Knowing that the EEG services were needed for Huntsville and Walker County, the hospital explored options for bringing neurological diagnostics in-house as part of a broader inpatient teleneurology and stroke program. The result was the successful implementation of a rapid EEG solution from Zeto that requires no gels or pastes and can be set up by respiratory therapists in under five minutes.
