Personalized interdisciplinary stroke care - Neurocardiology board meetings

The management of stroke patients often requires expertise from cardiologists. This includes questions of cardiovascular complications after stroke, tailored secondary prevention approaches like the treatment of patent foramen ovale (PFO) or joint management of cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities. Thus, joint decision-making with (interventional) cardiologists needs to be organized efficiently. For this reason, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the American Heart Association (AHA)/American Stroke Association (ASA) recommend regular collaboration of these two specialties on stroke units.

The Departments of Cardiology (DHZC) and Neurology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin implemented a brain heart team approach in 2019 by establishing ongoing monthly neurocardiology boards aiming to deliver tailored, individualized patient care by integrating interdisciplinary perspectives. Our ongoing research focuses on describing the structure and feasibility of regular neurocardiology boards as well as analyzing its impact concerning questions of PFO treatment and other questions of secondary prevention of stroke.