A collaboration among two U.S. health organizations and their Chinese counterpart aims to raise the standards of care for stroke patients in China to levels that have been achieved in the United States and other western nations.
The project involving the American Heart Association, American Stroke Association and Chinese Stroke Association brings more than a decade of proven best practices to bear on emergency and hospital practice during the potentially deadly event, an American Heart Association release said.
More than 1.5 million people in China suffer strokes every year, costing the nation nearly $6 billion in annual coverage. Researchers have mapped locations across China where the stroke risk can be up to 50 percent above average.
Four key areas will be addressed by assisting Chinese doctors in adopting the U.S.-based Get With the Guidelines program, which specifies additional training, earlier use of blood thinners as emergency treatment and other best practices, the release said.
Ying Xian, assistant professor of neurology and medicine at Duke University’s Medical Center and Clinical Research Institute and a spokesman for the American Stroke Association, said the joint effort underscores the association’s commitment to worldwide health.
“The U.S. marketplace has given us a road map to develop scalable and sustainable models for international quality improvement initiatives,” Xian said in the release. “Now, with our consult, the Chinese Stroke Association aims to adopt those models to achieve better outcomes for stroke patients in China.”
