By Dr Hrvoje Budincevic
ESO EAST Workshop – the 10th Anniversary of ESO EAST
The ESO EAST Steering Committee organized the ESO EAST Workshop, supported by the ESO EAST Head Office.
The 10th Anniversary ESO-EAST workshop was organized on 14th May 2024., traditionally as a pre-conference meeting, a day before ESOC 2024 in Basel, Switzerland. It gathered representatives from ESO EAST countries, the ESO EAST Steering Committee, ANGELS Initiative representatives, the RES-Q Team, the ESO Head Office, industry partners, and guests. This year, we were honored by participating in three ESO presidents: Peter Kelly, ESO president; Simona Sacco, ESO President-elect; and Valeria Caso, former ESO president and an ESO EAST founder. They gave an opening speech regarding the ESO mission and the role and future of ESO EAST. After opening speeches, founding members of ESO EAST – Rober Mikulik, Natan Bornstein, Axel Kolmetz, Veronika Svobodova, and Valeria Caso presented the history of ESO EAST and presented their remembrance of ESO EAST’s founding.
The workshop was divided into two parts, one chaired by the new ESO EAST Steering Committee members (Zuzana Gdovina, Adam Kobayashi, Cristina Tiu, and Hrvoje Budincevic) and the other introduced by Francesca R. Pezzella.
The workshop had two special lectures: Pawel Swieboda gave a speech on European Brain Health Policy and European Health Data Space (as a Key lecture). Milan Vosko presented change management as a tool for improving door-to-needle time.
The goals of this year’s workshop were to:
- Share novel features on the RES-Q registry.
- Present practices on monitoring of stroke care in selected ESO EAST countries.
- Present ESO EAST projects and publication plans.
- Improve collaboration with ESO Committees.
Rupal Sedani, Cristina Tiu and Robert Mikulik presented novel features and the future of the RES-Q registry. Colleagues from Estonia, Hungary, Georgia and Moldova presented their practice for stroke care monitoring. The more collaboration between the ESO EAST and ESO Committees is expected, colleagues from selected ESO COmmittes presented their plans – Tatjana Kharitonova (for AI Committee), Zuzana Gdovinova (Brain and Heart Committee), Anita Arsovska (Education Committee), Zdravka Poljakovic (PR Committee), Aleksandras Viloskonis (Stroke Unit Certification Committee) and Janika Korv (Neuorehabilitation Committee). Jan van der Merwe presented collaboration with Angels Initiative. Particular focus was put on joint research papers on dysphagia (Michal Karlinski), access to rehabilitation (Anita Arsovska), reperfusion therapy (Zuzana Gdovinova), Stroke units (Hrvoje Budincevic), and Baltic countries stroke quality paper (by Aleksandras Vilionskis).
Another particular topic was presentations on projects from and of ESO EAST countries: application for management of EVT in Poland (Adam Kobayashi). Some of the topics needed more time for discussion, and they will be covered by webinar, e.g. mobile stroke units in Czechia (Robert Mikulik), harmonizing hospital reports of stroke patients (Milan Vosko) and rehabilitation training program (Francesca R. Pezzella and Axel Kolmetz). Discussions were conducted in an amicable and constructive atmosphere, as it is a practice in all this ten years.
