A stroke is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off by either a blood clot (85% of cases) or a burst blood vessel. Strokes affect some 15-17 million people a year, and they are a leading cause of death and disability. Urgent treatment is therefore essential to save the patient’s life and prevent further damage to the brain. Due to the potential for long-lasting consequences, stroke care involves a lengthy, complex pathway requiring coordination among multiple healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, many patients experience impaired care due to poor coordination between their healthcare providers.
The goal: a comprehensive approach to stroke management
Now, new IHI project UMBRELLA aims to revolutionise the way we manage strokes by implementing a comprehensive approach that addresses gaps along the whole stroke care pathway, from diagnosis and emergency treatment, right through to rehabilitation and the prevention of further strokes.
The project brings together over 20 public and private organisations, and is led by Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) and Siemens Healthineers.
"UMBRELLA will leverage leading academia and cross sector industry expertise around stroke treatment in a way that individual collaborations never could," says Frank Berger, Global Head of Acute Stroke Treatment at Siemens Healthineers.
AI algorithms to advance diagnosis and care
At the heart of UMBRELLA is a federated data platform dubbed the ‘U-platform’. The project will harmonise real world stroke data from participating clinical centres to a common data model. These datasets will then be used to locally create and validate artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms designed to advance stroke diagnosis, risk prediction, and decision-making at different points in the stroke care pathway.
The new AI algorithms will undergo further training and testing on other datasets via a federated learning framework. This approach ensures the AI models benefit from being trained on multiple datasets, but because the data is not shared or pooled, security and privacy are ensured.
The project also aims to create standardised stroke management protocols and procedures and implement them across the participating clinical centres. These protocols will include the use of digital technologies to collect and visualise data, engage patients, and facilitate decision making at all stages of stroke care.
“We support the consortium's unique approach to utilise innovative technology validated by real world data for faster and more effective treatment of acute strokes as well as better understand stroke causes and prevent recurrence," says Hanno Herrmann, Global Head of Secondary Stroke Prevention at Siemens Healthineers.
Finally, the project will develop a regulatory roadmap to secure the approvals needed to implement the project outputs in patient care. They will also establish a sustainability plan to ensure the continued existence of resources like the U-Platform beyond the end of the project.
UMBRELLA: a ‘stroke care revolution’
“UMBRELLA represents a stroke care revolution that will accelerate the access to cutting edge innovative and personalised diagnoses and treatments to thousands of stroke patients in Europe,” said Carlos Molina, Head of the Stroke Research Group, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), and Head of the Neurology Section- Stroke Unit Vall d'Hebron. “UMBRELLA will set new standards of cross-sector collaboration that will positively impact quality of life and reduce disability of stroke patients in Europe.”