New research aims to close gaps in Australian stroke care
New research looking into how Australian hospitals deliver stroke care has found that patients across the country are receiving different standards of care, depending on which hospital they’re admitted to and that these standards of care differ significantly.
The research, ‘Championing Stroke Care: Insights from the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry on priority areas of Acute Stroke Care’, is led by Professor Dominique Cadilhac from The Florey and Monash University (School of Clinical Sciences) on behalf of the registry consortium and will be presented at this week’s combined Stroke Society of Australasia and Smart Strokes Nursing and Allied Health Scientific Meeting in Melbourne, which is being attended by more than 450 Australian and international stroke experts.
The research involved the analysis of 16,458 hospital admissions of acute stroke across 60 Australian public hospitals.
The authors focused on four priority areas of acute stroke care including, stroke unit treatment, the time it took for the patient to receive neuroimaging, swallowing assessments and the time it took for a patient to receive clot-busting treatment- thrombolysis. Hospitals were categorised if the care of their patients was either exceptional, average or poor.
The team found that despite strong evidence for these recommended acute stroke care practices, Australian patients are receiving different standards of care depending on where they’re hospitalised.
Professor Dominique Cadilhac, says the results show there’s an urgent need to ensure equivalent high quality stroke care between Australian hospitals.
“Unfortunately, there remains significant variation between Australian hospitals which shows us that standardised registry data are essential to identifying areas of improvement against national benchmarks, and to support quality improvement initiatives such as national stroke unit certification, whereby hospitals must meet criteria to be acknowledged as providing organised and appropriately resourced stroke care services.”
Professor Cadilhac says collecting the registry data is step one in closing the stroke care gap and ensuring better care and outcomes for Australian patients experiencing stroke.
“The challenge has been that we haven’t had the ability to really close the gap which is why we need standardised data to be collected. We then need to determine how to best support hospitals to acknowledge where they’re not doing so well compared to their peers and provide the strategies to improve.”
“It shouldn’t matter which hospital patients with stroke go to, they are entitled to receive best practice care and the registry data is working to deliver that and to reduce death and disability after stroke.” Professor Cadilhac said.
Participating Hospitals
ACT Calvary Health Care
ACT Canberra Health Service
NSW Blacktown Hospital
NSW Westmead Hospital
QLD Bundaberg Hospital
QLD Caboolture Hospital
QLD Cairns Hospital
QLD Gold Coast University Hospital
QLD Gympie Hospital
QLD Hervey Bay Hospital
QLD Ipswich Hospital
QLD Logan Hospital
QLD Mackay Base Hospital
QLD Mater Hospital Brisbane
QLD Prince Charles Hospital
QLD Princess Alexandra Hospital
QLD Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital
QLD Redcliffe Hospital
QLD Redland Hospital
QLD Robina Hospital
QLD Rockhampton Hospital
QLD Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
QLD Sunshine Coast University Hospital
QLD Toowoomba Hospital
QLD Townsville Hospital
SA Flinders Medical Centre
SA Lyell McEwin Hospital
SA Royal Adelaide Hospital
TAS Launceston General Hospital
TAS North West Regional Hospital
TAS Royal Hobart Hospital
VIC Albury Wodonga Health - Albury Campus
VIC Albury Wodonga Health - Wodonga Campus
VIC Alfred Hospital
VIC Bairnsdale Regional Health Service
VIC Ballarat Health Services
VIC Bass Coast Health
VIC Bendigo Health
VIC Box Hill Hospital
VIC Central Gippsland Health Service
VIC Echuca Regional Health
VIC Goulburn Valley Health
VIC Hamilton Base Hospital
VIC Latrobe Regional Hospital
VIC Maroondah Hospital
VIC Mildura Base Hospital
VIC Monash Medical Centre
VIC Northeast Health Wangaratta
VIC Peninsula Health - Frankston Hospital
VIC Royal Melbourne Hospital
VIC St Vincent's Hospital Victoria
VIC Sunshine Hospital - Western Health
VIC Swan Hill District Health
VIC The Northern Hospital
VIC University Hospital Geelong
VIC Warrnambool Base Hospital
VIC Werribee Mercy Hospital
VIC West Gippsland Hospital
VIC Wimmera Base Hospital
WA Fiona Stanley Hospital