# Enhancing Stroke Prehospital and Emergency Evaluation and Delivery (E-SPEED)

> **NIH AHRQ R18** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2021 · $378,922

## Abstract

Nearly 800,000 people in the United States (US) each year are affected by stroke, which remains the leading
cause of adult disability and 5th leading cause of death. Despite the proliferation of stroke centers nationwide,
access to timely stroke care and evidence-based therapies is still poor with multiple inefficiencies,
redundancies, errors, and system-based barriers that lead to care fragmentation. A stroke system of care that
integrates and coordinates care between non-stroke center hospitals, primary stroke centers, and
comprehensive stroke centers has been recommended since it would reduce stroke-related deaths by 20,000
annually in the US and nearly 400,000 worldwide. This proposal is significant because it addresses two
important gaps in knowledge about the acute evaluation and treatment of stroke patients: prehospital
screening errors and delays in inter-hospital transfer. The Enhancing Stroke Prehospital and Emergency
Evaluation and Delivery (E-SPEED) study will (1) enhance existing LVO screening tools, assess whether
machine learning approaches improve LVO prediction, and evaluate the impact of an Enhanced LVO
Screening Tool in the prehospital setting; and (2) use learning collaboratives and simulations to design,
implement, and pilot test a new inter-hospital stroke transfer protocol. We bring together systems engineers
and stroke health service researchers in a novel collaboration that will produce generalizable knowledge that
can be widely applied to other urban regions of the country and provide preliminary data and demonstration of
novel approaches that could be evaluated in large-scale comparative effectiveness studies across multiple
regions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10142463
- **Project number:** 5R18HS025359-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Shyam Prabhakaran
- **Activity code:** R18 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $378,922
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-03 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10142463

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10142463, Enhancing Stroke Prehospital and Emergency Evaluation and Delivery (E-SPEED) (5R18HS025359-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10142463. Licensed CC0.

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