Hong Kong’s first national-accredited chest pain centre has nearly halved the waiting time for patients with acute cardiovascular conditions since its launch a year ago.
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The Chest Pain Centre, led by Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam, also looked into further streamlining the process through facilities at the public institution’s new clinical complex and the use of emerging technology.
The hospital said that since the centre began operating in November last year, it had taken a median of 53 minutes to arrange surgery to restore blood vessel circulation for patients with acute cardiovascular diseases after admission.
The median time, officially known as “door-to-wire time”, was around 105 minutes before the centre’s operation, it added.
“When the heart’s blood vessels become obstructed, the resulting oxygen deprivation causes the muscle to fail. Prolonged muscle failure increases the risk of death,” said Dr Carmen Chan Wing-sze, deputy chief of service and consultant at the hospital’s department of medicine.
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She also said the time indicator was crucial for treating such patients, as the death rate increased the longer they waited for circulation to be restored.