“Is Myocardial Infarction Treatable?”... Will an Official Communication System Between Specialists at Different Hospitals Be Established?

“Suspected acute myocardial infarction patient, 65 years old, no operating room available at Hospital A. Please contact a hospital where stent procedures can be performed immediately.” (Specialist at Hospital A)

Emergency Medical Center scene to aid article understanding [Image source=Yonhap News]

An official communication system among specialists at different hospitals to provide timely treatment for emergency cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease patients is being established.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 26th, after holding the 13th Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee meeting, that it has finalized the “Pilot Project for the Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease Human Network Health Insurance (Plan).” According to the ministry, the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease human network is a medical system that forms network teams of surgery and procedure specialists from different hospitals for acute myocardial infarction, stroke, aortic dissection, and other conditions, providing rapid treatment services to patients.

It is most desirable for emergency cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease patients to receive immediate treatment upon arrival at the hospital, but there are often cases where patients must be “transferred” (轉院·moved to another hospital) due to the absence of essential medical staff or lack of operating rooms.

According to the medical community, the process where the attending physician at the patient’s hospital checks whether there is an on-duty physician at another hospital and whether there is capacity to accept the patient is called a “transfer inquiry.” However, this process is very complicated. When the medical staff making the transfer inquiry calls the emergency room of the other hospital, the emergency room must verify whether there is a specialist in the relevant department. If they receive a notification that acceptance is not possible, the inquiring medical staff must call another hospital again, which risks missing the patient’s treatment “golden time.”

A medical industry official said, “Unless using group chat rooms or phone calls with specialists they are personally acquainted with, the transfer process is very complicated.” The Ministry of Health and Welfare expects that establishing an official communication system among specialists, compensated through fees, will resolve such inefficiencies.

The ministry plans to implement the pilot project starting next year after establishing guidelines, developing a billing system, and selecting participating institutions. A ministry official stated, “Detailed information about the pilot project will be announced through the 2nd Comprehensive Plan for Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases on the 31st.”

Meanwhile, at the 3rd meeting of the Emergency Medical Delivery System Reform Consultative Body held by the ministry on the same day, measures to redefine the roles of emergency medical institutions according to patient urgency and severity and to strengthen their functions were discussed. The current names of emergency medical institutions will be improved to be more intuitively understood by the public, and plans to enhance emergency room functions and final treatment capabilities for each disease according to their roles were reviewed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.