on Behalf of The ESO/ESMINT/EAN/SAFE Survey on Stroke Care Collaborators†Miglāne, EvijaKupčs, KārlisĶikule, Ilga2021-06-022021-06-022019-12-01on Behalf of The ESO/ESMINT/EAN/SAFE Survey on Stroke Care Collaborators†, Miglāne, E, Kupčs, K & Ķikule, I 2019, 'Planning of stroke care and urgent prehospital care across Europe : Results of the ESO/ESMINT/EAN/SAFE Survey', European Stroke Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 329-336. https://doi.org/10.1177/23969873198371062396-9873https://dspace.rsu.lv/jspui/handle/123456789/4662Funding Information: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: SA is co-PI of the RACECAT trial. VC received grants and speaker fees from BI. UF is consultant for Stryker, Medtronic and CSL Behring; Research grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Heart Foundation and Medtronic. DAS, TG, FF, AK, IZ, MG and VF have no disclosures. Funding Information: The authors are grateful to all ?ESO/ESMINT/EAN/SAFE Survey on Stroke Care in Europe? collaborators. We are also in debt to Bo Norrving, Didier Leys, Kennedy Lees and Turgut Tatlisumak for their useful comments regarding the questionnaire, data collection methodology and policy implications of this paper. Publisher Copyright: © European Stroke Organisation 2019.Introduction: Adequate planning and implementation of stroke systems of care is key to guarantee a rapid healthcare response and delivery of specific reperfusion therapies among candidates. We assessed the availability of stroke care plans in Europe, and evaluated their impact on rates of reperfusion therapies for stroke. Patients: Based on the European Stroke Organisation (ESO), the European Society of Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy (ESMINT), the European Academy of Neurology (EAN), and the Stroke Alliance for Europe (SAFE) survey, we analysed specific prespecified items in the questionnaire regarding availability and adequacy of stroke care plans, organised prehospital care and their potential impact on rates of delivery of reperfusion therapies for stroke at the country level. Results: Of 44 participating European countries, 37 have stroke care plans that operate at national and/or regional levels. Most stroke care plans take responsibility for the organisation/implementation of stroke systems of care (86%), quality of care assessment (77%), and act as a liaison between emergency medical systems and stroke physicians (79%). As for stroke systems of care, the focus is mainly on prehospital and in-hospital acute stroke care (Code Stroke systems available in 37/44 countries). Preferred urgent transport is via non-medicalised ambulances (70%). Presence of stroke care plans, stroke registry data, transport of urgent stroke patients via non-medicalised ambulances, and drip-and-ship routing of acute patients showed higher reperfusion treatment rates. Discussion: Availability of stroke care plans, still absent in some European countries, as well as some features of the stroke systems of care are associated with higher reperfusion treatment rates. Conclusion: Stroke is not yet a priority everywhere in Europe, which is a barrier to the spread of reperfusion therapies for stroke.8382586enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessintravenous thrombolysismechanical thrombectomyprehospital carequality of careStrokesystems of care3.2 Clinical medicine1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus databaseClinical NeurologyCardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/researchoutputtypes/contributiontojournal/article10.1177/2396987319837106http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063333176&partnerID=8YFLogxK