Wesley Chapel Hospital Opens Brain-Clot Suite Monday, Ending Some Out-of-County Stroke Transfers

AdventHealth Wesley Chapel will unveil a new biplane neurointerventional suite on Monday, Aug. 17, at its hospital at 2600 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., and the practical effect for central and east Pasco is this: a patient having a severe ischemic stroke can have the clot pulled out of their brain on that campus rather than being loaded into an ambulance headed for another county. Doctors, first responders and community leaders get the first look Monday.

The procedure at the center of it is mechanical thrombectomy. A specialist threads a thin catheter up through the blood vessels, reaches the clot blocking flow to the brain, and removes it. No open surgery. For certain severe strokes, doing it fast is the difference between walking out of the hospital and living with permanent disability.

Dr. Jason Maljaar, the hospital's medical director of neurology, said in a release that time is brain, and that being able to intervene on campus means patients get critical treatment faster, with better odds of recovery. The hospital has also brought on specialized neurointerventional physicians to staff the program.

Why the transfer clock mattered

Until now, some Pasco patients who needed that level of intervention had to be moved to another hospital, which delayed treatment and put them farther from family, according to the hospital.

Geography explains a lot of that. Pasco's designated Comprehensive Stroke Center is HCA Florida Bayonet Point Hospital in Hudson, on the other side of the county, where the stroke program launched in 2019 and has since passed 700 thrombectomies. From a house in Wesley Chapel, Land O' Lakes or Zephyrhills, the realistic alternatives ran toward Hillsborough. Every one of those miles came off the clock.

AdventHealth Wesley Chapel is currently designated a Primary Stroke Center. The new suite and the added physicians are part of its push for Comprehensive Stroke Center designation, the tier reserved for hospitals equipped to handle the most complex stroke cases.

What else the suite does

Stroke is the headline use, but not the only one. The hospital plans to use the room for brain aneurysm treatment, diagnostic cerebral angiograms, and other emergency and elective neurovascular procedures.

It also supports middle meningeal artery embolization, a minimally invasive treatment for some patients with chronic subdural hematomas, which are collections of blood between the brain and its outer covering. Those show up often in older patients after falls, and they are a common reason a family ends up shuttling between hospitals.

The "biplane" part refers to the imaging. Two camera arms work at once, building three-dimensional views of the brain's blood vessels so the physician can navigate them in real time. The hospital did not disclose what the suite cost.

The numbers behind it

More than 80,000 Floridians were hospitalized for strokes in 2023, according to the Florida Department of Health. Stroke remains a leading cause of death and long-term disability nationally.

Pasco's demographics push that risk higher than the state average in places, and the county keeps adding residents at both ends of the age range. Wesley Chapel's hospital has been growing to keep up, most recently through a campus expansion that added a new tower with more licensed beds, additional operating rooms and endoscopy suites.

What happens next

Monday's event is a demonstration for clinicians, EMS crews and local officials rather than a public open house. The bigger thing to watch is the Comprehensive Stroke Center review, which involves outside certification and specific requirements on volumes, staffing and around-the-clock coverage. The hospital has not said when it expects that decision. Details on its neurology and neurosurgery services are posted at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel.

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