Jan van der Merwe | A Decade of Angels

The Angels Initiative is 10 years old. In a special birthday edition of the Angels Stroke Heroes podcast, we talk to project lead and cofounder Jan van der Merwe about a decade of Angels, the organization he and Thomas Fischer brought to life in May 2016.  

Ten years later, the Angels Initiative has reached every goal, and exceeded every target.  

It is estimated that more than 50 million stroke patients will receive evidence-based care in Angels hospitals by 2030. 

With over 300,000 registered users on the Angels website, it is the world’s largest stroke community, a truly global movement that spans multiple continents including Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Over 200,000 courses have been completed in our online learning platform, the Angels Academy. World-wide, more than 9,000 hospitals and 1,000 prehospital teams have met the standard for hospital and EMS awards.  

The target of 1,500 hospitals by December 2019 was reached in 2018, and the number of registered Angels hospitals now exceeds 10,000. The Angels-supported schools-based awareness program, FAST Heroes, has reached more than one million children and two million grandparents. And the strategy to convert 1000 Angels Regions by December 2027 overshot its target earlier this year. 

We asked Jan about the tragic event that became a trigger for an extraordinary intervention in stroke care, about the strategic model that underpins the organization, and about doing things for the right reasons.  

In this episode:  

• God’s plan & doing things for the right reasons 

• The devastating moment that led to the launch of Angels 

• A multi-platform behavior change strategy 

• Insights about complexity and time 

• The real meaning of awards 

• The power of communities 

• A shocking experience that further shaped his understanding of the mission 

• ‘They need not wait to see what others do’ 

• The next 10 years 

Find out more about the Angels Initiative:

www.angels-initiative.com