How does a community outbreak of an infectious disease like COVID-19 impact STEMI systems of care and PPCI workflow?
This case series describes the early impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency on STEMI systems of care and primary PCI workflow in Hong Kong.
cute ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a disease of high mortality and morbidity, and primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) is the typical recommended therapy. 1,2 Systems of care have been established to expedite PPCI workflow to minimize ischemic time from symptom onset to definitive treatment in the catheterization laboratory. Little is known about the impact of public health emergencies like a community outbreak of infectious disease on STEMI systems of care. Since December 2019, the emergence of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, has evolved into a regional epidemic, including in Hong Kong, a city in Southern China. We describe the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on STEMI care in Hong Kong through a handful of recent cases of patients with STEMI who underwent PPCI at a single center.
Tam et al. (Tue,) studied this question.