ESOC 2025 | Uncovering the unexpected data on stroke care in the European region

This was the exciting title of a talk on the stroke service tracker data from 2023, which have just been published. It is so that we are 47 countries in Europe who collect annually data on stroke care in order to be able to identify care gaps and find solutions. So what we found this year was that there’s actually a very good development as to the deep structural side of it. Countries are getting national stroke plans and this means that they’re getting a structure into which they can grow excellent stroke care. Secondly, we also observed that there were improvements in acute care where a lot of countries are meeting all key performance indicators of the area, whereas some are lacking behind and some are lacking behind to a high degree. As to Europe as a whole, there’s still significant issues as to access to stroke unit care and to the early rehabilitation in stroke units, which are both ways of improving functional outcome and survival in all stroke patients, also including those with the most severe strokes. And then there’s still significant gaps as to follow-up. What we could also report was that there are statistically significant differences in performance in European regions. We could also report that having a national stroke plan significantly increases the performance of the stroke care system. And this is even more true if you also have a quality program monitoring the care. You could also observe significant regional differences and last but not least significant differences relating to economic factors including gross domestic product and healthcare spending per capita. So, there is a lot of work to do in the future but we have much help from this and all the data can be accessed on the Action Plan for Stroke in Europe website.

This transcript is AI-generated. While we strive for accuracy, please verify this copy with the video.