The Wisconsin Coverdell Stroke Program will build on our partnerships with hospitals and EMS services, existing statewide stroke registry, data infrastructure, educational opportunities and health promotion efforts in the next three years.
While our work has resulted in many successes in stroke care in Wisconsin, much work remains, including addressing disparities in access to and quality of care. Expansion of efforts in 2021-2024 will focus on areas including: (1) increased post-discharge data tracking, (2) workforce development opportunities to improve care access and quality issues (clinical and social) and reducing disparities across the stroke systems of care (SSoC), and (3) collaboration with, and outreach to, high risk populations for stroke.
We will improve data infrastructure by expanding beyond our current reach of 70 hospital and 71 EMS partners who are part of the Coverdell Stroke Program. A majority of these partners currently submit data to the Wisconsin Ambulance Run Data System (WARDS) and Get with the Guidelines (GWTG) which, collectively, make up the statewide registry and infrastructure used to track quality of care throughout the SSoC. Outreach to expand efforts will focus on reaching areas and populations currently underrepresented, including rural areas, and increasing post-discharge data submission.
Using team-based approaches to enhance quality of care, we will use the data collected to offer educational opportunities in areas of systematic quality improvement, clinical education and workforce development, including topics focused on addressing disparities in stroke access and care. The use of quarterly report cards, which provide EMS and hospital partners with performance metric data across the SSoC continuum, will expand to include information on areas of disparity in their agency.
We will also focus on linking community and clinical services and resources engaging Community Health Workers and Patient Navigators to work with individuals and populations at high risk for stroke. In addition, to better understand the needs of all communities in stroke access and care, community listening sessions will be taking place to give voice to those populations disproportionately impacted by stroke incidence and severity and to better understand the barriers that exist in access to stroke care.
Collectively, these activities represent a continued growth in the efforts to reduce the burden of stroke across Wisconsin. The capacity to do this work is supported by the high level of expertise within the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the large, and growing, network of partners across Wisconsin in all areas of stroke prevention and care.