Cape Cod Hospital Earns Comprehensive Stroke Center Certification

Cape Cod Hospital has become the first hospital on Cape Cod and the Islands to earn comprehensive stroke center certification, a designation that means the hospital can now treat the most severe stroke cases without transferring patients to Boston-area hospitals.

Comprehensive stroke center status requires hospitals to maintain around-the-clock availability of neurosurgeons and specialized imaging capable of guiding advanced procedures such as mechanical clot removal, requirements that had previously kept the region's stroke patients dependent on lengthy transfers for the most serious cases.

"Every minute matters with a stroke, and for a long time our sickest stroke patients from here, and especially from the Islands, were spending significant transport time to reach the kind of hospital that could actually treat them," said Cape Cod Hospital's stroke program medical director. "Now that treatment can happen right here."

The hospital spent nearly three years building out the clinical infrastructure required for certification, including recruiting additional neurosurgeons and interventional specialists willing to relocate to a seasonal, geographically isolated part of the state, historically a recruiting challenge for specialized medical staff. Cape Cod Hospital also upgraded its imaging equipment to meet certification requirements for rapid stroke assessment.

Massachusetts health officials said the certification fills a significant gap in stroke care access for the Cape and Islands' year-round population, which swells considerably each summer, and which previously had no comprehensive stroke center within the region. Hospital officials said the designation will be reviewed again in two years as part of standard recertification requirements.