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(Stroke. 2005;36:1616.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Special Report

Editorial Comment—Organized Stroke Care

The Core of Effective Stroke Care Provision

Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
The past decade has witnessed a dramatic change in treatment of acute stroke, leaving the era of an indifferent approach firmly behind. However, equally important to the development of particular emergency treatments is the recognition that the organization of stroke services per se plays a key role in the provision of effective therapies and in improving the overall outcome after stroke.

In this issue of the journal, the consensus statement from the Brain Attack Coalition (BAC), a group with representatives from major professional and advocacy organizations involved in stroke care, with extensive recommendations for comprehensive stroke centers is published.¹ The report is a companion to the recommendations for the establishment of primary stroke centers published by the same group in 2000.²

	Basic Stroke Care: Still Not Fully Established

 
The previous report of the BAC² detailed 11 key elements of a primary stroke center to improve patient care and outcomes. Recommendations included acute stroke teams, stroke units, written care protocols, and an integrated emergency response system. A major impetus for the recommendation was clearly to establish the infrastructure and logistics to permit broad implementation of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator therapy within the 3-hour window according to the criteria of the NINDS trial. A survey showed that in 2001, emergency services for acute stroke therapy were in place at the majority of hospitals,³ and the situation has further improved later on.

However, and somewhat surprisingly from a non-US perspective, establishment of stroke units was given less emphasis in the BAC recommendations. Stroke units were not considered to be required . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. Norrving and R. J. Adams Organized Stroke Care Stroke, February 1, 2006; 37(2): 326 - 328. [Full Text] [PDF]