Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the single largest killers worldwide.
The Middle East is no exception; in fact the onset of CVD occurs on average ten years earlier in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) compared to the rest of the world, while one in four adults in Saudi Arabia are likely to have a heart attack within the next 10 years.
This means a concerted, immediate and ongoing effort – across the care continuum
– from healthy living and prevention to diagnosis, treatment and home care is a non- negotiable. To drive down the incidences and increase positive outcomes of CVD, the healthcare and consumer worlds must come together, and information must flow freely between the two
PREVENTION: Supporting healthy lifestyles
An end-to-end cardiac care ecosystem that delivers better outcomes at a lower cost, begins with consumer power, enabled by healthy living and prevention applications “This shift puts people at the heart of a system that preserves health first – prioritising healthcare over sick care,” says Vincenzo Ventricelli, Chief Executive Officer for Middle East, Turkey & Africa at Philips. A second important touchpoint in CVD prevention is healthcare practitioner access to more lifestyle data in order to
identify health risks early on.
DIAGNOSE: Benefiting from connected and integrated technology
As CVD progress in a patient, the data mounds, which creates two common challenges – data fatigue due to an overwhelming amount of information, or data gaps due to non-interoperability across facilities or systems.
To simplify the complex care environment, the Philips IntelliSpace
Cardiovascular platform can help physicians access and process all that information in meaningful ways, by holding all relevant patient data from throughout the hospital and beyond on one accessible platform.
In line with Philips’ commitment to in- teroperability, IntelliSpace Cardiovascular also interfaces with multiple third-party applications, including scheduling systems, lab applications, and specialty picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). This comprehensive insight helps reduce the time and frustration related to accessing multiple systems and allows clinicians to search for specific information – like previous test results – across systems in a single workspace.
“By aggregating all of this data, clinicians are able to make more informed decisions and better collaborate with peers, to deliver high levels of patient care, efficiently and effectively,” says Ventricelli.
In addition to detailed historic data, an accurate view of structural heart abnormalities, or impacted blood flows, via Philips EPIQ CVx cardiovascular ultra- sound system assists healthcare practitioners from initial diagnosis to treatment
TREATMENT: Improved workflow in cath labs
By empowering clinicians to move quickly and confidently through procedures, limited resources could reach more patients. To realize this need, the Philips Azurion, a next generation image guided therapy platform, can be used to diagnose and treat patients in hospitals or specialist clinics, providing image guidance in diagnostic, interventional and minimally invasive surgery across cardiovascular procedures. Hospitals using Azurion have seen a 12% reduction in patient preparation time and
17% reduction in procedure time which frees up capacity to treat one more patient a day, now or in the future
These connected and integrated solutions across the continuum aim to save and improve lives, while reducing the total cost of care by making therapy more efficient, more appropriate and more personal, which ultimately delivers better healthcare.
“I am convinced that taking a holistic approach to cardiac care will bring real change in how we continue to manage and prevent heart disease moving forward,” says Ventricelli.
