Stroke is the leading cause of adult long-term neurological disability and accounts for ~ 5% of all disability-adjusted life-years and 10% of all deaths worldwide, with the bulk of this burden occurring in low-income and middle-income countries. It is the second largest cause of death worldwide, with a global lifetime risk of stroke is 25% among both men and women.
Stroke has been identified as one of the priority areas for WHO and the UN in their actions to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases. The past decade has seen extraordinary advances in the acute management and prevention of stroke, providing an excellent opportunity for establishing systems of care aimed at reducing the burden of stroke and its enormous financial and societal costs. A critical component to reducing related costs is provision of exemplary training to medical staff in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of stroke.
The Teaching Center for Stroke at Rambam Health Care Campus was established in response to these statistics to provide a solution across the continuum of care. Rambam is the only referral center for all of Northern Israel, serving more than two million potential patients. Performing more endovascular stroke procedures than any other center in Israel, Rambam’s stroke specialists are using artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate rapid and synchronized stroke care.