The Stroke patient's journey - an infographics description

Aim

The aim of the project was to visually describe the complexity of the stroke patient journey and highlight variation in access and delivery of stroke care at a statewide level.

Outcomes

The infographics were developed to support conversations with Queensland Health and HHS decision makers at all levels:

• assist with messaging and understanding of the complexity of the stroke care system
• support provision of education, specifically around the importance of minimising time disruptions in emergency elements of care
• improve understanding of the wider teams, governance structures, resources and strategies that overlap and support delivery of stroke care in an evidenced based way

Background

Stroke care in Queensland is complicated by the heterogeneity of stroke presentations, strict time-limited provision of hyperacute treatments and the geography of the state. True understanding of the impact of coordination of services and linkage of broader systems that support stroke care is vital.

Across 2019 and 2020, the Statewide Stroke Clinical Network (SSCN) has requested to attend the System Management Committee with the goal of improving access to reperfusion therapies for acute stroke. It became evident in these meetings and broader conversations that the breadth and depth of variations’ impact on the outcome of Queenslanders with stroke was not known or understood within the context of the patient journey.

Concurrently, the Statewide Stroke Clinical Network was engaged in project work to synthesis reperfusion therapy services. The infographic development visually demonstrated the complexity of the system and, subsequently, supported understanding of the flow on effects of system improvement activities.

Discussion

The Infographics project products were shared to the broader SSCN in April 2021. They are freely available to Queensland clinicians on the Stroke Management and Reperfusion Therapies intranet page.

Further evaluation on the use and impact of the tools will be conducted after this point. Evaluation will occur by monitoring traffic and downloads from the intranet page and through surveys to the Stroke Nurse Coordinators across the state to understand how they have used the infographics and any potential impacts they may have at a stroke unit level.

Lessons learnt

There was a short time window for this project meaning the small team had to be realistic about what could be achieved. We would have liked to expand this work to also include cost effectiveness and the impact of delays in access to care.