To identify general and medical demography of an institutional Mobile Stroke Unit (MSU) compared to patients transported to the emergency room (ER) by conventional emergency medical services (EMS).

This study sought to explore whether the demographics of our MSU matched that of our ER population, and whether these results were congruent with other studies.

Data were reviewed retrospectively from our institutional stroke database. Included were patients who presented via MSU or to the ER for emergency stroke evaluations. Excluded were patients under the age of 18, presenting greater than 24 hours from last-known-well, or transferred from another facility. The control group was ER patients meeting aforementioned criteria during MSU off-hours, which is 8PM-8AM daily seven days per week. We evaluated differences in baseline characteristics using the Chi-squared test for categorical variables, with continuity correction, and the Student t-test for continuous variables. For data described by median, the Wilcoxon rank sum test was used.

There were a total of 148 patients in the MSU group and 80 in the ER group meeting inclusion criteria. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of baseline characteristics or stroke subtypes. The patients evaluated in MSU were an average of six years older than patients evaluated in the ER. The median admission NIHSS in the MSU group was 6 vs. 4 in the ER group. Patients in MSU were more likely to have arrived from a healthcare facility. MSU patients were more likely to have government-sponsored healthcare plans.

This study provide class III evidence that our institution’s MSU patients are older, with a higher admission NIHSS, more likely to present from a healthcare facility, and differ in terms of insurance coverage, compared to our ER population.