Regional Variation in Recommended Treatments for Ischemic Stroke and TIA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Secondary stroke prevention treatments vary in different regions of the US. We determined the degree to which guideline-recommended stroke treatments vary by region for patients treated at hospitals participating in a voluntary national quality improvement program, Get with ehe Guidelines--Stroke. METHODS: Receipt of 8 guideline-recommended treatments (intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator, antihypertensives, antithrombotics, anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis, lipid-lowering medications at discharge, smoking cessation counseling, weight loss education) and defect-free care were compared in 4 US regions among eligible patients with ischemic stroke and transient ischemic attack; there was adjustment for patient demographics, medical history, and hospital characteristics. RESULTS: Among 991 995 admissions (South, 37%; Northeast, 27.6%; Midwest, 19.3%; West, 15.9%). Receipt varied regionally for tissue-type plasminogen activator (58.2%-67.8%), lipid-lowering medications (72.5%-75.7%), antihypertensives (80.1%-83.6%), antithrombotics (95.6%-96.8%), deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis (88.0%-91.4%), weight loss education (49.3%-54.7%), and defect-free care (72.1%-76.5%). In adjusted analyses, patients in the South had lower odds of use of intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator (OR [95% CI]; 0.82 [0.69-0.97]), antihypertensives (0.82 [0.67-0.99]), and defect-free care (0.83 [0.75-0.92]); but, they were more likely to receive lipid-lowering medications (1.28 [1.05-1.54]) compared with those in the Northeast. Patients in the Midwest had lower odds of intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator administration (0.82 [0.68-0.99]) and defect-free care (0.81 [0.72-0.92]). Those in the West had lower odds of antihypertensives (0.81 [0.67-0.99]), but had greater odds of receiving lipid-lowering medications (1.26 [1.03-1.53]). CONCLUSIONS: Despite relatively high rates of adherence to stroke-related therapies in Get With The Guidelines-Stroke hospitals, regional variations exist, with over one quarter of patients receiving suboptimal care. Systematic improvements may lead to better patient outcomes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".