StroCare - Optimised Cross-sectoral, Coordinated Treatment of Stroke Patients With Patient-orientated Outcome Measurement

Stroke is the second most common cause of death in Germany and the most common cause for life-long disability in adulthood. After stroke, patients often experience incisive changes in their health, daily routine and quality of life. The developed model of care (StroCare treatment) forms a cross--sectoral, structured and coordinated treatment pathway that integrates a patient-centred outcome evaluation. It aims to optimize the transition from acute inpatient treatment after an acute stroke to the ambulant neurological rehabilitation treatment. This is done firstly by creating an electronic portal solution for a safe and coordinated transmission of clinical data between the three participating hospitals and five stroke-specialized ambulant rehabilitation clinics and secondly by introducing a case-manager provided by the participating health insurance agency for patient support and aftercare coordination. The presented study is a multi-centred controlled interventional study with a pre-post design. Stroke patients in both groups are assessed after the index ischemic event and 12 months thereafter. Further sources of information are the medical record, the electronic portal (only intervention group), and routine data provided by the collaborating BARMER health insurance agency (for the Intervention and control group and additionally for a historic control). The main hypotheses are : (1) The StroCare treatment is more effective than the routine aftercare treatment (primary outcome: patient-reported physical quality of life) and (2) the StroCare treatment reduces costs for care and in the inpatient sector by providing more coordinated and thorough rehabilitation and outpatient aftercare.