title: Riks-stroke - a Swedish national quality register for stroke care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Riks-Stroke, the Swedish national quality register on stroke care, provides unique opportunities to evaluate stroke units in routine clinical care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Basic patient characteristics, process indicators and outcome variables are recorded in all 85 hospitals admitting acute stroke patients. A 3-month follow-up is included.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There are wide variations between hospitals in the proportion of patients admitted to a stroke unit, in secondary prevention and in the proportion of patients in institutional care at 3 months. Even after adjustment for available prognostic indicators, case fatality is lower and functional outcome is better in patients treated in stroke units than in patients treated in general wards.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Riks-Stroke shows that outcome is consistently better in patients treated in a stroke unit than in general wards, not only in randomised trials but also in routine stroke care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University Hospital, Umea, Sweden. Kjell.Asplund@medicin.umu.se
authors.forename: Kjell
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asplund
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hulter Asberg
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Norrving
authors.forename: Birgitta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stegmayr
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Terént
authors.forename: Per-Olov
authors.initials: PO
authors.lastname: Wester
mesh_terms: D006296:Health Services / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D006801:Humans; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D012042:Registries; D020521:Stroke / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome