BrainScope One can reduce unnecessary ED referrals by up to 75%

BrainScope announced today the release of a white paper authored by Urgent Care physicians which demonstrated that the FDA-cleared BrainScope One had the potential to reduce unnecessary Emergency Department referrals by up to seventy-five percent. BrainScope One offers a rapid (within minutes) assessment of the full spectrum of traumatic brain injury (TBI), including concussion, using digital electroencephalography (EEG) and other modalities, facilitating accurate and timely decision-making for first responders, clinicians, and other health practitioners at the point of care wherever an injury occurs.

Close to 5 million people who experience a TBI seek care and treatment at hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) in the U.S. each year, where over 80% of these patients are evaluated using a computed tomography (CT) scan of the head to detect brain tissue damage, or intracranial lesions, that may require treatment. Over 90% of these CT scans are found to be negative, unnecessarily exposing patients to radiation, long wait times, and high costs.

Urgent Care Centers have become an increasingly popular alternative to the ED for patients who are experiencing illness and injuries - such as mild head injuries including concussion - that don't necessarily rise to an emergency level. Utilizing BrainScope One, healthcare professionals at Urgent Care Centers have the potential to significantly impact the triage, assessment, and care of mildly presenting head injured patients.

Using data for the first 196 Urgent Care Center patients entered in the BrainScope One Registry, physicians practicing at BetterMed Urgent Care (VA) and Banner Health (AZ, CA, CO, NE, NV, and WY) compared referral for CT scans with and without integration of the BrainScope One assessment. The initial results assume that under standard clinical practice - without the use of BrainScope One - all patients would have been referred to the ED for CT scans. The study focused on mildly presenting patients (average GCS of 14.9), ages 18-45, representing approximately 75% of the patients in the Registry. Within this population, the authors demonstrated that the integration of BrainScope One in the Urgent Care Center can aid in significant diversion from ED referrals of up to 75%.

Alvaro Zeballos, MD, Chief Growth Officer at BetterMed Urgent Care stated, "We have found that utilizing BrainScope One has helped us to better manage head injured patients, decreasing ED visits and CT utilization, while helping us diagnose patients who will need treatment for concussions, improving their outcomes."

The significant diversion demonstrated in this white paper not only helps Urgent Care providers better manage and diagnose their head injured patients, it can also relieve ED overcrowding and patient wait times, eliminate unnecessary CT scans and radiation exposure, and reduce costs incurred by the patient and insurers, resulting in an overall benefit to patients and the broader healthcare system.

In addition, last week BrainScope announced the release of a white paper authored by physicians at Washington University Barnes Jewish Medical Center in St. Louis, which demonstrated that the FDA-cleared BrainScope One had the potential to reduce the use of unnecessary head CT scans by one-third in a hospital Emergency Department setting.