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Section 2.2

Leadership and Participants

The CSS Best Practices and Standards Working Group has overall responsibility for the development and update process. The 2010 update cycle was led by a subgroup of the working group and managed by the Director of Performance and Standards at the Canadian Stroke Network.

An interprofessional group of experts in stroke care participated in topic-specific task groups convened to review, draft, and revise recommendation statements for their topic. Recognized experts within the topic area chaired each task group, and members included stroke neurologists, physiatrists, nurses, emergency physicians, paramedics, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, speech-language pathologists, pharmacists, stroke survivors, education experts, and professionals from other disciplines as required. This interprofessional approach ensured that all relevant health disciplines for a particular topic area were represented in the development of the recommendations.

A national interprofessional consensus panel was convened to provide further input into the recommendations, and a final review was conducted by an external group of stroke and methods experts before release.

2.2.1 Conflict of Interest: Participants in the development and review process are required to sign confidentiality agreements and to declare all potential conflicts of interest in writing. Only four out of 143 participants declared a minor conflict such as receipt of honoraria to speak about stroke in other venues. None of these conflicts were deemed to prevent unbiased participation in the process. The recommendations were approved following a rigorous development process and through a consensus of independent experts and stakeholders, thereby minimizing the potential influence of any one participant.

The views and interests of the funding body have not influenced the final recommendations.

2.2.1 Conflict of Interest: Participants in the development and review process are required to sign confidentiality agreements and to declare all potential conflicts of interest in writing. Only four out of 143 participants declared a minor conflict such as receipt of honoraria to speak about stroke in other venues. None of these conflicts were deemed to prevent unbiased participation in the process. The recommendations were approved following a rigorous development process and through a consensus of independent experts and stakeholders, thereby minimizing the potential influence of any one participant.

The views and interests of the funding body have not influenced the final recommendations.