National stroke registries for monitoring and improving the quality of hospital care: A systematic review

Background: Routine monitoring of the quality of stroke care is becoming increasingly important since patient outcomes could be improved with better access to proven treatments. It remains unclear how many countries have established a national registry for monitoring stroke care. Aims: To describe the current status of national, hospital-based stroke registries that have a focus on monitoring access to evidence-based care and patient outcomes and to summarize the main features of these registries. Summary of review: We undertook a systematic search of the published literature to identify the registries that are considered in their country to represent a national standardized dataset for acute stroke care and outcomes. Our initial keyword search yielded 5002 potential papers, of which we included 316 publications representing 28 national stroke registries from 26 countries. Where reported, data were most commonly collected with a waiver of patient consent (70%). Most registries used web-based systems for data collection (57%) and 25% used data linkage. Few variables were measured consistently among the registries reflecting their different local priorities. Funding, resource requirements, and coverage also varied. Conclusions: This review provides an overview of the current use of national stroke registries, a description of their common features relevant to monitoring stroke care in hospitals. Formal registration and description of registries would facilitate better awareness of efforts in this field.