The 'Angels Initiative' - Improving acute stroke care
The ‘Angels Initiative’ launched by Boehringer Ingelheim in partnership with the European Stroke Organisation (ESO) and the World Stroke Organisation (WSO) is a unique healthcare initiative to improve care for people who have just suffered a stroke (acute stroke care) across Europe and in emerging markets.
The aim of the ‘Angels initiative’ in Europe is to build a community of at least 1,500 stroke centres and ‘stroke ready’ hospitals to improve stroke care by improving acute stroke networks, treatment procedures and sharing knowledge with hospitals to set up stroke-units.
The programme provides doctors, nurses and hospitals with the necessary resources, training and support they need to set up and optimise acute stroke networks worldwide.
Suffering a stroke is one of the most devastating medical emergencies that can happen to a person. 17 million people worldwide suffer a stroke every year. One–third of these people die as a consequence and another third are left permanently disabled.1
Guidelines recommend that people who have had a stroke are treated in a specialized stroke unit by a dedicated team. Treatment should be initiated as quickly as possible after onset of symptoms - ideally within 60 minutes after arrival in the hospital.2,3
In Europe, every 30 minutes a stroke patient, who could have been saved, dies or is permanently disabled, because they were not receiving the standard of treatment a specialized stroke unit provides.4