• Paula Muñoz Venturelli, Thompson Robinson, Pablo M Lavados, Verónica V Olavarría, Hisatomi Arima, Laurent Billot, Maree L Hackett, Joyce Y Lim, Sandy Middleton, Octavio Pontes-Neto, Bin Peng, Liying Cui, Lily Song, Gillian Mead, Caroline Watkins, Ruey-Tay Lin, Tsong-Hai Lee, Jeyaraj Pandian, H Asita de Silva, Craig S Anderson, and HeadPoST Investigators.
• The George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Unidad de Neurología Vascular, Servicio de Neurología, Departamento de Medicina, Clínica Alemana de Santiago, Facultad de Medicina Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.
• J. Neurol. Sci. 2016 Dec 15; 371: 126-130.

BackgroundFew studies have assessed regional variation in the organisation of stroke services, particularly health care resourcing, presence of protocols and discharge planning. Our aim was to compare stroke care organisation within middle- (MIC) and high-income country (HIC) hospitals participating in the Head Position in Stroke Trial (HeadPoST).MethodsHeadPoST is an on-going international multicenter crossover cluster-randomized trial of 'sitting-up' versus 'lying-flat' head positioning in acute stroke. As part of the start-up phase, one stroke care organisation questionnaire was completed at each hospital. The World Bank gross national income per capita criteria were used for classification.Results94 hospitals from 9 countries completed the questionnaire, 51 corresponding to MIC and 43 to HIC. Most participating hospitals had a dedicated stroke care unit/ward, with access to diagnostic services and expert stroke physicians, and offering intravenous thrombolysis. There was no difference for the presence of a dedicated multidisciplinary stroke team, although greater access to a broad spectrum of rehabilitation therapists in HIC compared to MIC hospitals was observed. Significantly more patients arrived within a 4-h window of symptoms onset in HIC hospitals (41 vs. 13%; P<0.001), and a significantly higher proportion of acute ischemic stroke patients received intravenous thrombolysis (10 vs. 5%; P=0.002) compared to MIC hospitals.ConclusionsAlthough all hospitals provided advanced care for people with stroke, differences were found in stroke care organisation and treatment. Future multilevel analyses aims to determine the influence of specific organisational factors on patient outcomes.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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