New Australian Stroke Clinical Registry
The Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR) is a new initiative that will collate key data to significantly improve the quality of hospital care for all patients admitted with stroke or transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs).
Approximately 60,000 strokes occur in Australia every year, and two thirds of these are first-ever strokes. While approximately one third of strokes result in death, many of those who survive will live with permanent and significant disability. The lifetime costs associated with stroke and related disability is estimated to be over $2 billion per year.
The AuSCR database will gather information about patients with stroke to determine the patterns of treatment, rehabilitation and recovery of patients. The data collected provides information about the severity of stroke at three months after stroke, as well as the quality of stroke treatment in hospitals, and includes questions such as:
• Whether the patient was treated in a Stroke Care Unit?
• Whether the patient and family received a care plan on discharge?
• Whether the patient received blood pressure medication on discharge?
• Whether the patient has had another stroke since discharge from hospital?
The information recorded in the AuSCR database will allow individual hospitals to monitor the quality of stroke treatment and the care they provide to patients. National and state-based comparisons of the quality and outcomes of care are also possible.
“The Australian Stroke Registry allows us to better understand the effects of stroke and the influence of the care they receive when they visit hospital, and therefore can be used to provide feedback to improve the quality of hospital care,” said Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Neurologist Professor Craig Anderson, who is also the Director of the Neurological and Mental Health Division at The George Institute for International Health and Chair of the AuSCR Management Committee.
“In most cases, when best practice stroke medicine is provided, lives are saved and long-term disability is prevented.”
AuSCR is a collaboration between the following partners: The George Institute for International Health, the National Stroke Research Institute, the National Stroke Foundation, and the Stroke Society of Australasia.
Professor Anderson and colleagues want to obtain the most accurate picture about stroke, the care received every day by patients who have had a stroke, and whether or not the best-quality interventions are being provided to all stroke patients.
By working together with clinicians, the return on investment in AuSCR will be substantial in terms of better population health and fewer acute episodes of stroke.
