{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T22:43:52Z","timestamp":1791499432292,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,13]],"date-time":"2022-10-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1665619200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Neurol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>Stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and disability. Improving patient outcomes can be achieved by improving stroke care and adherence to guidelines. Since wide variation in adherence rates for stroke guidelines still exists, we aimed to describe and compare stroke care variability within Belgian hospitals.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Materials and methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>An observational, multicenter study was performed in 29 Belgian hospitals. We retrospectively collected patient characteristics, quality indicators, and time metrics from the last 30 consecutive patients per hospital, diagnosed with ischemic stroke in 2019 with structured questionnaires. Mean adherence ratios (%) \u00b1 SD (minimum \u2013 maximum) were calculated.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>We analyzed 870 patient records from 29 hospitals. Results showed large inter- and intrahospitals variations in adherence for various indicators. Almost all the patients received brain imaging (99.7%) followed by admission at a stroke unit in 82.9% of patients. Of patients not receiving thrombolysis, 92.5% of patients were started on antithrombotic drugs. Indicators with moderate median adherence but large interhospital variability were glycemia monitoring [82.3 \u00b1 16.7% (26.7\u2013100.0%)], performing clinical neurological examination and documentation of stroke severity [63.1 \u00b1 36.8% (0\u2013100%)], and screening for activities of daily living [51.1 \u00b1 40.3% (0.0\u2013100.0%)]. Other indicators lacked adequate adherence: swallowing function screening [37.0 \u00b1 30.4% (0.0\u201393.3%)], depression screening [20.2 \u00b1 35.8% (0.0\u2013100%)], and timely body temperature measurement [15.1 \u00b1 17.0% (0.0\u201360%)].<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>We identified high adherence to guidelines for some indicators, but lower rates with large interhospital variability for other recommendations also based on robust evidence. Improvement strategies should be implemented to improve the latter.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fneur.2022.1004901","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,13]],"date-time":"2022-10-13T07:20:32Z","timestamp":1665645632000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Variation in stroke care at the hospital level: A cross-sectional multicenter 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