Stroke care in region greatly improved - Waterloo—Wellington, Ontario

You can't tell from this if anything has improved. NO MENTION OF RESULTS.
Survivors don't care about care, they want to know about recovery results. By not providing that they are explicitly acknowledging that they aren't very good at stroke results. Call up that stroke hospital president and ream them out about this lack of information. 
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6750291-stroke-care-in-region-greatly-improved/

WATERLOO REGION — Stroke care in the region improved dramatically in the last few years thanks to a co-ordinated effort, ranking the area as a provincial leader in several areas on an annual report card.

"There's been a significant amount of improvement across the entire (health network)," said Andrea Guth, program director of the Waterloo Wellington Integrated Stroke Program.

"It really comes down to organizations being willing to come to the table and work together."

The Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network showed exemplary performance in six areas on a report card released earlier this month by the Ontario Stroke Network and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

It evaluates performance in public awareness of stroke, prevention, acute stroke management, rehabilitation and reintegration.

Only a few years ago, the area's report card was "mostly red," colour coding on the report card for poor performance.

Then the health network's board decided to integrate stroke services in 2013.

"We basically centralized special care," Guth said.

By treating a greater volume of patients, a facility provides better care because expertise is gained in that specific area.

Grand River Hospital and Guelph General Hospital, for instance, became the designated sites for acute stroke care, and all patients get emergency stroke care there.

"We can become much more skilled in delivering best practices," Guth said.

Before, she said, "everyone was doing their own thing and if patients showed up they'd provide care."

Areas where this region excelled include access to specialized acute care, shorter waits for rehabilitation, appropriate lengths of stay and quicker improvement in functional ability. This region ranked as having "exemplary performance" in six out of 20 care categories.

"We've seen signification changes in both our acute and rehab environment," Guth said.

One area flagged in the latest report card, which covers 2014/15, is a lower proportion of acute stroke patients discharged from acute care and admitted into in-patient rehabilitation.

However, Guth said that's linked to robust community care available here. Rather than going to a facility, many people are getting rehabilitation at home.

"They can recover much faster in their own environment," Guth said.

"We actually believe that's not necessarily a bad indicator for us."

This region was also a high performer in the proportion of stroke patients who arrived to the emergency department by ambulance — noted as an indicator of public awareness and patient education.

"That means the message is getting out there," Guth said.

Quick action is crucial with a stroke, which is why people should call an ambulance if they're experiencing the warning signs of stroke — including a drooping face, slurred speech and arm weakness.

"The faster patients can get to hospital, the better," Guth said. "A million brain cells die every minute in the early stage of stroke."

Guth said the goal is to keep doing well in the areas where this region excelled and improve in others. The great success in improving stroke care here is being noticed across the province.

"We now have many other (local health networks) coming to us."

jweidner@therecord.com , Twitter: @WeidnerRecord