Assessing the Validity of the Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale and the Medic Prehospital Assessment for Code Stroke in an Urban Emergency Medical Services Agency

AbstractObjectives. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two prehospital stroke screens in correctly classifying patients suspected of having a stroke. Secondarily, differences in the sensitivity and specificity of the two screening tools were assessed. Methods. We performed a retrospective assessment of the Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS) and the Medic Prehospital Assessment for Code Stroke (Med PACS) between March 1, 2011, and September 30, 2011, in a single emergency medical services (EMS) agency with seven local hospitals all classified as stroke-capable. We obtained data for this analysis from the EMS electronic patient care reports (ePCRs) and the Get With The Guidelines−Stroke (GWTG-S) registries maintained by the two local health care systems by matching on patient identifiers. The Med PACS was developed specifically for the EMS agency under study by a local team of neurologists, emergency physicians, and paramedics. All of the physical assessment eleme...