Differences in intervention for patients with acute stroke according to the manpower of neurosurgeons
Hyeong Sook Kim, Yun Seo Jang, Suk-Yong Jang, Chung Mo Nam, Eun-Cheol Park
Abstract
Stroke, a leading global cause of death, poses a substantial health burden. The incidence of stroke is high in an aging society. Appropriate healthcare resources are crucial for providing prompt interventions to patients with stroke.
Introduction
Stroke, which encompasses all disorders and injuries in the brain, is classified as a cerebrovascular disease [1]. It includes ischemic stroke (blood clot or thrombus formation in a damaged blood vessel, blocking nutrient and oxygen supply to the brain), hemorrhagic stroke (resulting from blood vessel rupture in the brain, causing bleeding), and transient ischemic attacks (temporary disruption of the blood supply to the brain, resolving within 24 h without permanent damage) [1,2].
Methods
Data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) claims records for medical expenses were used in this study. Initially, the government defined the evaluation period for assessing the appropriateness of acute stroke as a reference for the preceding 6 months.
Results
Table 1 presents the analysis results of the individual-level characteristics of the patients. Of the 60,661 patients, 14,254 and 46,407 had hemorrhage and ischemic stroke, respectively.
Discussion
We analyzed the impact of various individual- and hospital-level factors on the treatment of patients with acute stroke, categorizing them into hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke cases.
Conclusion
The significance of this study lies in its analysis of the impact of the number of neurosurgeons on the treatment of patients with acute stroke, considering the high mortality and the ongoing need for continuous care because of the nature of stroke.
Citation: Kim HS, Jang YS, Jang S-Y, Nam CM, Park E-C (2025) Differences in intervention for patients with acute stroke according to the manpower of neurosurgeons. PLoS ONE 20(3): e0319740. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319740
Editor: Chibuikem Anthony Ikwuegbuenyi, Weill Cornell Medicine, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Received: August 13, 2024; Accepted: February 6, 2025; Published: March 10, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The data in this study can only be used by applying directly to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service's own data, and it is not publicly shared data. Data are available from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service Institutional Data Access for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data in HIRA website (https://opendata.hira.or.kr).
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
