Improving stroke care in Nova Scotia, Canada: a population-based project spanning 14 years.

Stroke is a complex disorder that challenges healthcare systems. An audit of in-hospital stroke care in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2004-2005 indicated that many aspects of care delivery fell short of national best practice recommendations. Stroke care in Nova Scotia was reorganised using a combination of interventions to facilitate systems change and quality improvement. The focus was mainly on implementing evidence-based stroke unit care, augmenting thrombolytic therapy and enhancing dysphagia assessment. Key were the development of a provincial network to facilitate ongoing collaboration and structured information exchange, the creation of the stroke coordinator and stroke physician champion roles, and the implementation of a registry to capture information about adults hospitalised because of stroke or transient ischaemic attack. To evaluate the interventions, a longitudinal analysis compared the audit results with registry data for 2012, 2015 and 2019. The proportion of patients receiving multidisciplinary stroke unit care rose from 22.4% in 2005 to 74.0% in 2019. The proportion of patients who received alteplase increased steadily from 3.2% to 18.5%, and the median delay between hospital arrival and alteplase administration decreased from 102 min to 56 min, without an increase in intracranial haemorrhage. Dysphagia screening increased from 41.4% to 77.4%. More patients were transferred from acute care to a dedicated in-patient rehabilitation unit, and fewer were discharged to residential or long-term care. These enhancements did not prolong length-of-stay in acute care. The network was a critical success factor; competing priorities in the healthcare system were the main challenge to implementing change. A multidimensional, multiyear, improvement intervention yielded substantial and sustained improvements in the process and structure of stroke care in Nova Scotia.

Quality of Care for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: Development of Canadian Cardiovascular Society Quality Indicators.

Currently there are more than 40 centres in Canada that perform more than 65,000 percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) in a year. Considering the high volume of procedures and number of operators, the potential for variation in processes of care is high, and might lead to variation in the quality of care. As part of its quality initiative, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society convened a working group to develop a set of PCI Quality Indicators (QIs) that would be relevant, scientifically acceptable, and feasible to measure and report. The working group was comprised of clinical experts from across Canada and members of provincial and federal organizations involved in promoting the quality of health care. Using the Canadian Cardiovascular Society "Best Practices for Developing Cardiovascular Quality Indicators" methodology, a total of 23 QIs were proposed. Subsequent ranking and discussion led to the selection of 8 QIs. The selection and ranking of QIs were on the basis of clinical importance and relevance, scientific acceptability, and feasibility of their operationalization at a national level. The data definitions and technical notes of the QIs were refined after feasibility testing and Web consultation. Feasibility testing indicated that standardization and enhancements of knowledge infrastructure are essential to provide the comprehensive patient data necessary to evaluate the quality of PCI across Canada.