How to find and influence factors that impact patient outcomes in Stroke? This question becomes more relevant as healthcare institutes across the world have the ambition to move to value-based healthcare.
The patient experience is fundamental to the success of a value-based healthcare concept because the value is measured by achieving outcomes that matter to the patient. This is especially important in stroke care when you consider that how a stroke influences a patient’s quality of life may be as important as saving a patient’s life.
A measurement like your door-to-needle or door-to-thrombectomy time is a key indicator in a stroke event. But although that is an extremely important indicator, looking at that parameter alone may cause us to overlook other factors in the continuum that influence patient outcomes that matter to the patient.
The value for the patient is created over the full cycle of care – during their experience in the pre-hospital phase, throughout their time in a hospital, as they prepare to go home and during their recovery period at home. It will be measured by how a patient perceives their care and how they perceive the organization and provider’s ability to prepare them and their family for each phase of their condition.
Care for a medical condition involves multiple care providers, specialties and interventions. The stroke patient’s journey typically crosses borders of many different healthcare entities who don’t necessarily work collaboratively towards a seamless patient experience.