The American Heart Association Launches Initiative To Improve The Full Care Journey To Post-Acute Stroke Patients

Across the U.S., approximately half of all stroke patients are discharged home or to hospice at home, with the remainder going to in-patient rehabilitation, skilled nursing facilities, and long-term care facilities.

More than 90% of stroke patients experience some form of disability as a result and more than 11% suffer a second stroke within a year. Yet, post-acute care is often siloed from the rest of the health care system and inconsistent across care delivery settings.

The American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization focused on heart and brain health, has launched a two-year initiative to expand and enhance post-acute stroke care across Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota, giving all patients the best chance at independent life after stroke. A similar initiative was recently announced in Iowa, as well, as part of a larger project focused on improving the entire system of stroke care across that state.

Made possible with support from The Helmsley Charitable Trust, this $1.5 million initiative will implement newly developed American Heart Association Post-Acute Stroke Program Standards in post-acute facilities across Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota. Adoption of the standards will maximize recovery of function lost during a stroke, reduce risk of secondary effects, and extend high quality guideline-directed care for all patients across their full stroke journey.

“Targeted, high-quality post-stroke rehabilitation interventions, customized to patient needs, can dramatically improve recovery of function lost during a stroke, but current gaps in the system of care can lead to high rates of hospital readmissions, variability in care coordination and sub-optimal outcomes for patients,” said Janna Pietrzak, Program Consultant, Health Care Quality for the American Heart Association. “This new initiative will help to ensure patients receive the most up-to-date science-informed care to improve recovery and reduce disability after experiencing a stroke.”

The new initiative seeks to establish post-acute care as a core component in the system of stroke care. Participating facilities will beta-test the new standards to create benchmarks of success against which facilities nationwide will be able to assess their care.

In addition, participating facilities would also experience a number of benefits:

• Up to a $20,000 participation stipend

• Site-specific quality improvement support and processes improvement ideas surrounding quality standards for stroke recovery, rehabilitation, and secondary prevention. 

• Opportunity to be part of a learning collaborative, working with experts in stroke rehabilitation to build tools and share/create best practices to be disseminated nationally.

• Opportunity to learn from similar facilities applying best practice.     

• Collaboration between your facility and local system of care facilities, e.g., Referring hospitals, local outpatient providers, etc.

For more information on the project or to get your facility involved, email Pietrzak at Janna.Pietrzak@Heart.org.