Ospedale Maria Vittoria is a small hospital located in Turin-Piemonte, Italy, and sees approximately 340 stroke patients every year. The Angels Journey of this hospital started in May 2017 when Dr. Daniele Imperiale, Head of the Neurological Department, and Fabio Melis, Stroke Unit coordinator, first learned about the Angels Initiative. Inspired and motivated to join its mission, they rallied the entire Stroke Team to design a new, more efficient intra-hospital stroke pathway together with an Angels Consultant.
They gathered all the different departments together for a multidisciplinary meeting (not an easy feat by itself), where they discussed and identified several points of improvement to reduce door-to-treatment time. Some key actions for immediate implementation included:
- Alert system for all Stroke Team members from the triage nurse
- Recanalisation therapy to be performed directly in the CT-room before the angio CT in case of no medical history of coagulopathy
- Prioritization of blood sample tests in the lab, using a two-phone-calls notification system
After re-organizing the stroke pathway and constantly monitoring the door-to-treatment time, the team managed to obtain great results within a very short period.
Within less than a year, the hospital’s average door-to-treatment time was nearly halved from 80 to 48 minutes, and the number of patients receiving recanalization therapy every month was doubled.
More importantly, nurses and doctors have become more cohesive and motivated from the results obtained, and a great sense of team spirit has enveloped every member of the Stroke Team.
These exemplary achievements were presented by Dr. Melis at the ISO Angels Italy Conference in front of more than one hundred physicians from all over the country, highlighting the importance of a constant quality monitoring.
Within less than a year, the hospital’s average door-to-treatment time was nearly halved from 80 to 48 minutes, and the number of patients receiving recanalization therapy every month was doubled.
More importantly, nurses and doctors have become more cohesive and motivated from the results obtained, and a great sense of team spirit has enveloped every member of the Stroke Team.
These exemplary achievements were presented by Dr. Melis at the ISO Angels Italy Conference in front of more than one hundred physicians from all over the country, highlighting the importance of a constant quality monitoring.
Exactly one year after joining Angels, Dr. Imperiale and Dr. Melis decided to organize a dummy patient simulation within the hospital to test and reinforce the hyper acute pathway and see if there were other ways to further optimize the treatment times.
Once again, the team managed to achieve an outstanding result and completed the simulation within 23 minutes!
The Hospital Maria Vittoria stroke team is a clear example of how not only “time is brain” but also “team is brain”!
