Key Performance Indicators

KPI 13b

Short-term (30 days) mortality after hemorrhagic stroke is monitored and <30% is acceptable.

Current status

Short term mortality after haemorrhagic stroke varies significantly across Europe, high mortality is observed in Eastern Europe, low rates in central Europe whereas Northern Europe presents mortality rates at the level of 30-35%. Level of early mortality reflects quality of care in the stroke units.

It is noteworthy, that there are national differences in the admission of very severely affected or very frail patients to specialised stroke care. If those groups are not admitted to stroke unit care and not included in the national datasets, this will result in artificially lower mortality rates; this is especially significant in haemorrhagic stroke. As evidence on benefit from stroke unit care is specifically strong in this subset of patients as well as palliation in fatal stroke is a specialised task, a very low mortality may also be a marker of limited stroke unit access for frail patients and patients with very severe stroke.

The benchmark was set at <30% mortality within 30 days.