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Invited Commentary
September 2016

Admitting the Patient With Acute Stroke to the Right House—Lessons From the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts

Author Affiliations
  • 1Stroke Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston
JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(9):1368-1370. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.3930

The goal of any prehospital sorting function is to allocate patients to the most appropriate destination that will maximize their outcomes as defined by their preferences, goals, needs, and resources. In much the same way, the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in J. K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter seeks to place each student in the proper “house.” Just as there are competing schools of wizardry, there are also multiple organizations1 that seek to certify stroke centers by differing criteria, although The Joint Commission (JC) Primary Stroke Center (PSC) program is by far the oldest and largest.

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