Community stories

Portalegre lies so deep in the Portuguese interior that nurses working in the district hospital compared it to “the Azores without the sea”. To connect this landlocked “island” to the mainland, Angels consultant Inês Carvalho would need to build a bridge – or two.

The last time the town of Most caught the world’s attention was the result of an epic feat of stamina and will. Now a team no less determined is putting Hospital Most on course for diamond status.

A state-of-the-art simulation centre at the biggest hospital in the Baltics has made the city of Kaunas synonymous with stroke care quality improvement in Central Europe.

A tale of three hospitals in Portugal’s Centro region is a vote of confidence for a quality monitoring initiative, Melhora Quem Sabe (“better who knows”), that seeks to deliver data-driven improvement to the country’s stroke units.

St. Łukasz in Bolesławiec in Poland’s Lower Silesian region won a diamond award in less than 7 months of opening its stroke unit, scooping a second in the very next quarter. Consultant Anna Kiełkowska describes it as a hospital with an open heart, but when you get to know this team, you realise there are many open hearts beating together.

She didn’t just start a new job, she started a new life and joined a new family. A new consultant in Spain reports on the start of her mission to change outcomes for stroke patients in her country.