To avoid delay in providing diagnosis and treatment to heart attack patients in rural areas, the State-run Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences will start a heart attack management programme — STEMI India — in August.
Institute Director C.N. Manjunath, speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on ‘Telemedicine for Healthcare services’, organised by KEONICS on Friday, told The Hindu that the project will be taken up in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Kalaburagi and Dakshina Kannada regions initially.
Once the project begins, any patient in a taluk hospital or primary health centre, who needs an angioplasty and has to be referred to a higher centre, will be diagnosed through telemedicine at the hospital itself. The patient will then be provided medical treatment with thrombolytic therapy, following which angioplasty can be performed in the next 24 hours. Otherwise, during a heart attack, angioplasty should be performed within the first six hours, Dr. Manjunath explained.
“Through the thrombolytic therapy, the patient can actually buy time of 24 hours. The patient’s diagnosis data will be transmitted through telemedicine to a higher centre where he will be referred for angioplasty. This will save several lives,” the doctor said.
General practitioners and doctors in taluk hospitals and primary health centres, who are the first point of contact for patients in rural areas, will be trained to diagnose heart attack cases. “We are identifying a total of 30 hospitals across the State and will classify them into A, B and C categories. The patients can be diagnosed in C and B categories and each of the hospitals in this category will be provided 25 ECG monitoring equipment. After diagnosis, the patient can be referred to ‘A’ category hospital for angioplasty,” Dr. Manjunath said.
Earlier, Health Commissioner P.S. Vastrad said the State government’s ‘e-Hospital’ project would take off by the end of this year.
