F.A.S.T for Stroke

The film “F.A.S.T For Stroke” is yours.

The driving force behind this project is the frustration and helplessness felt by a team. A team that hopes for the best for its patients, but lacks the right methods and communication, and so remains trapped in a cycle of immutable errors.

Despite being pioneers of endovascular care in 2009, my team and I weren’t able to significantly change our patient workflow in 10 years. The paradox is that each team member, working individually, is completely dedicated and competent in their field.

While professional training is currently focused on individual skills, the care delivered to patients is the result of a combination of those skills. Even if for a regular, scheduled surgery we can let each professional provide patient care "sequentially", during urgent life-saving treatments (coronary emergency, polytrauma, stroke) this way of proceeding is a major loss of opportunity for the patient.

In the Stroke department, the synchronization of skills becomes critical to a successful treatment. On average, the emergency sector is composed of 14 different professionals, which presents a challenge when it comes to their training.

We wanted to create this non-profit film, translated into different languages, in order to make it easier for you to take a step back as a professional. It should allow you to share a moment of emotion with your team, through which everyone can recognize organizational weaknesses that they’ve already encountered.

The objective is to inspire the will to change.

I hope this resource will be useful for you as it was for us. Today, we’re able to do things we thought impossible yesterday:
- Imaging in 9 minutes
- Beginning fibrinolysis within 15 minutes
- An artery puncture within 30 minutes following arrival

All of this without sacrificing the diagnosis phase.

Although lots of work remains to be done to universalize this process, it is no longer a fantasy: we now know that we’re capable of achieving it… and that has changed everything for us! 

A huge thanks to the entire cast and to all the organizations, institutions, learned societies, and technicians who made this film possible.