The hub-and-spoke model with Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) as the hub hospital for STEMI cluster in the region, and secondary-level Government hospitals as spoke hospitals to attend to heart attack cases, has won appreciation in a recent meeting of Health Secretaries from all States held in New Delhi.
CMCH Dean B. Asokan told The Hindu on Thursday that the Additional Directorate General of Health Services praised the hub- and-spoke model of CMCH and the official plans to visit the hospital to know more about its functioning. Also, health secretaries of a few States including Telangana have expressed interest to replicate the model in their places.
Quick transfer of patients
Aimed to reduce mortality caused by STEMI or ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction, a serious type of heart attack, the hub-and- spoke model ensures quick transfer of heart attack patients from the spoke hospitals to CMCH using 108 ambulance network.
“CMCH has 13 hospitals from Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Tirupur and Erode as spoke hospitals. We also have a WhatsApp group of doctors and technicians to handle cases of thrombosis (clot in blood vessel) when the patient is being transferred to the hub hospital,” said Dr. Asokan.
On arrival at CMCH, the patient will get advanced care like coronary angiogram at the Department of Cardiology, which has a dedicated catheterisation laboratory.
Dr. Asokan said that all cardiology-related services at CMCH have been brought under one roof with a dedicated new outpatients department for the Department of Cardiology that handles around 400 outpatients a day. Now, registration, electrocardiogram (ECG), echocardiogram, angiogram, treadmill test and other advanced procedures are made available at one place. The comprehensive cardiac care ward has 80 beds. Dr. Asokan said that the Department had performed more than 2,500 catheterisation procedures since March 2018.
