JFK named comprehensive stroke center Designation makes medical center second in state to meet criteria BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer EDISON - JFK Medical Center has become the second hospital in the state to be designated a Comprehensive Stroke Center by the state Department of Health and Senior Services. The hospital, long a leader in brain trauma treatment, was given the designation on June 15 after a three-month certification period, where Dr. Martin Gizzi, chairman of the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute, said the state examined its application "in excruciating detail." According to Gizzi, a Comprehensive Stroke Center is the highest level designation a state hospital can achieve in the treatment of strokes, and, most importantly, the administration of the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (TPA). The state separates stroke centers into two classifications, primary and comprehensive care units. In the event of a stroke, Gizzi said, a primary care facility has three hours to administer TPA in order to reverse the effects of the stroke on the brain. In the event that the stroke is not treated within that time, a comprehensive unit is equipped to handle cases up to eight hours from the onset of symptoms. "Some strokes require more extensive treatment," Gizzi said. "They require neuro-surgical intervention ... some patients don't get there in the three hours necessary to be eligible for TPA." Gizzi said the comprehensive center is there to "instruct and to back up the primary centers." All comprehensive care hospitals would serve as the center of a network of primary care hospitals in order to serve the needs of stroke victims beyond the initial three-hour window for TPA. "We have at present eight hospitals that are affiliated with us to transfer strokes either by helicopter or ambulance," Gizzi said, "and we have another six that have just asked to affiliate with us." Gizzi said that, like heart attacks decades earlier, the public is not fully aware of the ramifications stroke symptoms can have on the brain and often do not take them as seriously as they should. "The most important thing people should know that there are stroke centers, whether they are primary or comprehensive," Gizzi said, "and that they are an emergency." Gizzi said that stroke victims should treat their condition every bit as seriously as they would a heart attack, even calling a stroke a "brain attack." Gizzi said that the classifications exist because TPA is a dangerous drug that could cause hemorrhaging if needlessly administered. Much of the qualifications for primary or comprehensive stroke center designation includes the ability to quickly and accurately diagnose stroke using a variety of different tests and diagnostic methods, sometimes in as little as 30 minutes. "When we get a code stroke in our emergency room six people converge on this patient all at once," Gizzi said. "That's an awful lot to get done in 30 minutes and that's why you need a team."