The Integrated Stroke Unit at Brockville General (BrGH) opened on October 12th, 2022. An ISU Steering Committee including front line clinicians and patient experience advisors collaboratively planned and guided this approach to care.
The new Integrated Stroke Unit (ISU) at BrGH builds upon the previous work to establish an Acute Stroke Unit at BrGH in 2013 and its expansion to serve all of Lanark, Leeds, Grenville counties (LLG) in 2016. Stroke Survivors in LLG continue to have access to specialized stroke care through the ongoing partnership of Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital and BrGH. What’s different now is that the ISU brings together the Acute Stroke Unit with stroke rehabilitation services that previously operated on a different unit within Brockville General Hospital. The design allows for continuity of care in a geographically consolidated unit with a team specially trained in stroke. The new ISU is fully functional with an interprofessional team, cardiac monitoring, updated rehabilitation equipment and a very warm welcoming, spacious and state of the art environment for patients, families and caregivers. For the evaluation plan, the ISU Steering Committee identified key indicators to track in an effort to identify and address issues arising from this change of stroke care delivery. A Debrief Checklist was also used to evaluate whether key stroke best practices were in place for the first 15 patients admitted to the new ISU. This included whether the ISU Welcome Book for patients & families was provided and the stroke clinical pathway started. The recent evaluation report showed that the team was on track and had met key indicator targets such as improved stroke unit utilization and that stroke best practices were in place. From this evaluation, areas of future opportunity were also identified such as: expanding dysphagia screening education to ED nurses; improving FIM completion with strategies already identified; increasing practice for telemetry monitoring; and completing a patient/family survey. The team has indicated, “We strive for excellence in care every moment and every movement in this beginning of the stroke recovery journey” & “Stroke care within the ISU aims to help persons who have had a stroke achieve their highest possible functional ability and quality of life.” The team will continue to monitor this practice change in order to continuously improve stroke care outcomes for the citizens of LLG counties. To Learn More about the BrGH ISU, Click Here