For strokes, closest hospital might not be best

Bypassing closer hospitals to rush people with blood clots or bleeding in their brains to specialty hospitals is an increasingly common way to deliver the most advanced stroke care as soon as possible. The treatment model is similar to the one developed to help save the lives of those severely injured in accidents or by violence by passing local hospitals to reach one of the 255 U.S. trauma centers. The idea behind the specialty center trend is the belief that staffs in such facilities move faster and perform better than those in other hospitals, making up for any extra minutes a patient spends on the road.