“…Evidence from South Africa also suggests a similar arrangement appears to show promise. 26 A review also corroborates the present findings on the need to establish partnerships to improve care. The review highlights that beneficiaries of such exchange or partnership programmes benefit both personally and professionally where skills from such collaborations are often applied to improve patients outcomes.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 87%
“…This partnership has since led to stroke care professionals benefiting from professional capacity building opportunities on stroke care (eg, managing continence, discharge planning, improving mood, functional independence and swallowing) and overall improvement in the health‐care systems for stroke care in the beneficiary health facilities. Evidence from South Africa also suggests a similar arrangement appears to show promise . A review also corroborates the present findings on the need to establish partnerships to improve care.…”
Background and Objective
Efforts to improve the adoption of evidence‐based interventions for optimal patient outcomes in low‐/middle‐income countries (LMICs) are persistently hampered by a plethora of barriers. Yet, little is known about strategies to address such barriers to improve quality stroke care. This study seeks to explore health professionals’ views on strategies to improve quality stroke care for people who had a stroke in a LMIC.
Methods
A qualitative interview study design was adopted. A semi‐structured interview guide was used to conduct in‐depth interviews among forty stroke care providers in major referral centres in Ghana. Participants were from nursing, medical, specialist and allied health professional groups. A purposive sample was recruited to share their views on practical strategies to improve quality stroke care in clinical settings. A thematic analysis approach was utilized to inductively analyse the data.
Results
A number of overarching themes of strategies to improve quality stroke care were identified: computerization and digitization of medical practice, allocation of adequate resources, increase the human resource capacity to deliver stroke care, development of clinical guideline/treatment protocols, institutionalization of multidisciplinary care and professional development opportunities. These strategies were however differentially prioritized among different categories of stroke care providers.
Conclusion
Closing the gap between existing knowledge on how to improve quality of stroke care in LMICs has the potential to be successful if unique and context‐specific measures from the views of stroke care providers are considered in developing quality improvement strategies and health systems and policy reforms. However, for optimal outcomes, further research into the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed strategies by stroke care providers is needed.
“…Evidence from South Africa also suggests a similar arrangement appears to show promise. 26 A review also corroborates the present findings on the need to establish partnerships to improve care. The review highlights that beneficiaries of such exchange or partnership programmes benefit both personally and professionally where skills from such collaborations are often applied to improve patients outcomes.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 87%
“…This partnership has since led to stroke care professionals benefiting from professional capacity building opportunities on stroke care (eg, managing continence, discharge planning, improving mood, functional independence and swallowing) and overall improvement in the health‐care systems for stroke care in the beneficiary health facilities. Evidence from South Africa also suggests a similar arrangement appears to show promise . A review also corroborates the present findings on the need to establish partnerships to improve care.…”
Background and Objective
Efforts to improve the adoption of evidence‐based interventions for optimal patient outcomes in low‐/middle‐income countries (LMICs) are persistently hampered by a plethora of barriers. Yet, little is known about strategies to address such barriers to improve quality stroke care. This study seeks to explore health professionals’ views on strategies to improve quality stroke care for people who had a stroke in a LMIC.
Methods
A qualitative interview study design was adopted. A semi‐structured interview guide was used to conduct in‐depth interviews among forty stroke care providers in major referral centres in Ghana. Participants were from nursing, medical, specialist and allied health professional groups. A purposive sample was recruited to share their views on practical strategies to improve quality stroke care in clinical settings. A thematic analysis approach was utilized to inductively analyse the data.
Results
A number of overarching themes of strategies to improve quality stroke care were identified: computerization and digitization of medical practice, allocation of adequate resources, increase the human resource capacity to deliver stroke care, development of clinical guideline/treatment protocols, institutionalization of multidisciplinary care and professional development opportunities. These strategies were however differentially prioritized among different categories of stroke care providers.
Conclusion
Closing the gap between existing knowledge on how to improve quality of stroke care in LMICs has the potential to be successful if unique and context‐specific measures from the views of stroke care providers are considered in developing quality improvement strategies and health systems and policy reforms. However, for optimal outcomes, further research into the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed strategies by stroke care providers is needed.
“…The review profile is shown in Figure 1. We identified 838 references from which 38 publications 16–53 were eligible for our review following de-duplication and screening. Figure 1.Review profile showing selection of studies.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The main core elements related to systems for stroke recognition and response were knowledge of stroke signs and symptoms, perception of adequate response to stroke signs and symptoms, availability and accessibility of stroke care policies and services. 16–31…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The high cost of infrastructure resources where they exist such as CT scanners, 26,27,37 medications such as thrombolysis, 39 and outpatient physiotherapy rehabilitation services 49 were reported as major barriers for stroke care in Africa. In addition, a study from Ghana 29 identified the lack of direct regional or national health policy to support stroke care, including a lack of a national stroke policy framework and national stroke clinical guidelines.…”
Background Appropriate systems of stroke care are important to manage the increasing death and disability associated with stroke in Africa. Information on existing stroke services in African countries is limited. Aim To describe the status of stroke care in Africa. Summary of review We undertook a systematic search of the published literature to identify recent (1 January 2006-20 June 2017) publications that described stroke care in any African country. Our initial search yielded 838 potential papers, of which 38 publications were eligible representing 14/54 African countries. Across the publications included for our review, the proportion of stroke patients reported to arrive at hospital within 3 h from stroke onset varied between 10% and 43%. The median time interval between stroke onset and hospital admission was 31 h. Poor awareness of stroke signs and symptoms, shortages of medical transportation, health care personnel, and stroke units, and the high cost of brain imaging, thrombolysis, and outpatient physiotherapy rehabilitation services were reported as major barriers to providing best-practice stroke care in Africa. Conclusions This review provides an overview of stroke care in Africa, and highlights the paucity of available data. Stroke care in Africa usually fell below the recommended standards with variations across countries and settings. Combined efforts from policy makers and health care professionals in Africa are needed to improve, and ensure access, to organized stroke care in as many settings as possible. Mechanisms to routinely monitor usual care (i.e., registries or audits) are also needed to inform policy and practice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
