The phone number is easy to remember - but who's calling it?

A few posts ago, we looked at the hospital behavior after a stroke patient is hospitalized. And you have seen postings about how hospitals often take patients more seriously if they arrive via ambulance.

But who's calling for an ambulance ride? Here's an interesting look at how race and sex may influence who calls an ambulance for stroke symptoms:

With an average age of 71, half of the stroke patients were women and almost 70 percent were white. Almost 20 percent were black, 8 percent were Hispanic and 3 percent identified as Asian.

Slightly more than 60 percent of white women had been transported to the hospital by EMS, compared to 57 percent of white men. About 57 percent of Asian women took an ambulance, compared to 55 percent of Asian men, the study team reports in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

There was less of a gender difference within the black and Hispanic populations, with African American men and women taking an ambulance about 58 percent of the time and Hispanics about 55 percent of the time.

“Calling 9-1-1 is associated with faster hospital arrival times. Stroke is a medical emergency and the faster a stroke patient gets to the hospital the better the outcome may be,” Mochari-Greenberger said.

So yes - don't hesitate to call for that ambulance!