Sergei Sobyanin: Moscow applies common cardiology equipment standard
The capital has more than doubled the number of saved patients with heart attacks because of clear routing, doctors’ professionalism and state-of-the-art technologies, Sergei Sobyanin blogs.
“Myocardial infarction is one of the most serious and widespread diseases. But, fortunately, in recent years medical science has made enormous progress in preventing and treating vascular accidents. And all that remains, as they say, is the small matter of providing timely and high-quality assistance in case of heart attacks to all Moscow residents. We started solving this problem more than ten years ago. Over the past period, Moscow has more than doubled the number of saved patients with myocardial infarction,” the Moscow Mayor wrote.
The biggest step in handling the issue is a common heart attack care network, which now includes about 20 vascular centers at multidisciplinary hospitals, evenly distributed throughout the city, to enable effective patient routing.
Ambulance dispatchers have online access to information about available operating rooms and CCU beds in hospitals, so crews can deliver patients with heart attack to the nearest free hospital to provide immediate assistance. In 2010, several hours could pass from ambulance arrival until emergency surgery in a hospital, whereas now it takes on average no more than 40 minutes.
Moscow has completed a few stages of equipping its healthcare institutions with state-of-the-art devices: the city has bought over 5,000 items for cardiac and vascular screenings since 2022 alone.
Cardiology equipment and drug treatment
Today, Moscow applies a common cardiology equipment standard to guarantee equal opportunities for Muscovites who seek medical assistance. An occasion where one hospital provides top-shelf treatment to a patient with a heart attack, while another hospital treats them the old-fashioned way because it has no necessary equipment is completely out of the question in the capital.
State-of-the-art equipment makes it possible to use the most efficacious gentle treatment methods.
“In many cases, open heart surgery is unnecessary. Thanks to angiography machines, more than 90 per cent of patients with large focal infarction receive primary angioplasty and vascular stenting. This significantly reduces hospital mortality and shortens recovery times after surgery from several weeks to two or three days,” explains Sergei Sobyanin.
There are also specialized shock centers created within the heart attack care network, which admit patients with extensive acute myocardial infarction. The biggest threat to them is cardiogenic shock, when a damaged heart does not supply vital organs with blood and therefore oxygen.
The shock centers are fitted with the latest equipment, including mechanical circulatory support devices, while drug treatment plays a vital role at the stage of recovery. Since 2020, Moscow has run a dedicated program to provide free medications to patients at high risk of cardiovascular diseases, who have had a heart attack or stroke and who have other circulatory conditions.
As a result, more than 160,000 Muscovites receive the latest medications annually, while patients requiring long-term medication treatment are provided with electronic prescriptions valid for up to one year, which saves time for both patients and doctors.
Prevention of cardiovascular diseases
Moscow pays great attention to preventing heart attacks. Identifying the risk of cardiovascular events is a high priority of health checkups, which include ECG and blood tests for cholesterol and glucose levels. If there are indications, the physician will definitely refer the patient to a cardiologist and offer an ultrasound of the heart and blood vessels, and, if necessary, other tests.
Patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases are admitted to the clinic for special screenings according to a tailor-made program. Doctors dynamically monitor their health status and, if they see critical deviations, invite them to unscheduled appointments.
In addition, doctors help their patients develop a health culture, including prompt checkups, medications, attention to health changes, and if their health worsens, patients should avoid self-medicating, but contact a doctor.
Moreover, doctors apply a wide range of AI-based technologies. For example, smart AI algorithms have been used to interpret ECGs in an automated manner, thus enabling more accurate detection of cardiac and vascular pathologies and reducing diagnostics times to a few minutes.
In addition, doctors help their patients develop a health culture, including prompt checkups, medications, attention to health changes, and if their health worsens, patients should avoid self-medicating, but contact a doctor.
Moreover, doctors apply a wide range of AI-based technologies. For example, smart AI algorithms have been used to interpret ECGs in an automated manner, thus enabling more accurate detection of cardiac and vascular pathologies and reducing diagnostics times to a few minutes.
In many cases, it is advisable to have elective heart or vascular surgery to avoid an accident. Moscow’s surgeons perform more and more routine high-tech operations, while physicians and cardiologists take advanced education courses and training sessions to learn how to prevent and treat vascular accidents. For example, in October, the authorities launched a new program with the focus on practice-oriented issues of CVD patient care.
“In the future we are going to continuously improve the heart attack care network. This means regular equipment upgrades, advanced treatment protocols, high-quality and affordable medicines, effective prevention and continuous training for doctors,” wrote Sergei Sobyanin.