Wuxi Launches China's First Citywide Chest Pain Center Model Powered by IoT to Transform Specialist Medical Consortium

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has recently learned that the Wuxi Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, the China Cardiovascular Health Alliance, and AstraZeneca have signed a strategic cooperation memorandum. With the support of Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the parties will jointly create the nation’s first city-wide model for National Chest Pain Centers. This initiative aims to achieve “comprehensive coverage, public participation, and whole-process management” in the treatment of chest pain patients across Wuxi, thereby maximizing the success rate of patient care.

Signing Ceremony for the Strategic Cooperation on the City-Wide Model of Chest Pain Centers in Wuxi

According to data from the "China Cardiovascular Disease Report 2016," there are 290 million patients with cardiovascular disease in China, including 2.5 million patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The number of patients is expected to be 10 times the current figure by 2030. For patients with cardiovascular disease, nothing is more worrying than the sudden onset of acute chest pain. For patients experiencing an acute episode of chest pain, time is life.

Internationally, door-to-balloon (D-to-B) time is commonly used to assess the emergency care capabilities of medical institutions for patients with acute myocardial infarction. Currently, the average D-to-B time in China is 112 minutes, significantly exceeding the international standard of 90 minutes. Delays occur across various stages of treatment, including initial consultation, transfer, diagnosis, and activation of intervention protocols. Furthermore, inadequate post-discharge communication between patients and hospitals or physicians results in suboptimal prognosis management, failing to effectively control rates of myocardial infarction recurrence and readmission, thereby exacerbating the societal healthcare burden.

To address the aforementioned challenges, Wuxi creatively proposed the concept of establishing a city-wide model for Chest Pain Centers. This approach breaks away from the traditional practice of individual hospitals building chest pain centers in isolation. Instead, it mandates that all eligible hospitals across the city comprehensively establish Chest Pain Centers and fully integrate with the "120" pre-hospital emergency medical services system. By leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, the system enables real-time recording and seamless data exchange of the entire treatment process for chest pain patients—including diagnosis, treatment, and critical time points—across all levels of hospitals and the 120 emergency system. This achieves true city-wide coverage and data sharing, minimizes treatment delays, gains crucial time for saving patients' lives, and provides more comprehensive care guarantees for chest pain patients. Within hospitals, collaborative service workflows among departments such as Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Emergency Medicine are implemented to promote multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment of chest pain conditions. These measures optimize in-hospital treatment processes to the greatest extent, further enhance medical capabilities for chest pain-related diseases, and reduce the time from patient arrival at a medical institution to the initiation of treatment.

Leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) technology, multiple stakeholders have collaborated to build an integrated acute chest pain care system that seamlessly connects pre-hospital, in-hospital, and post-discharge phases. This initiative aims to minimize emergency response times and harness the collective strength of partners across various fields to establish a whole-course management model featuring early diagnosis, rapid treatment, and scientific follow-up, thereby enabling more patients with acute myocardial infarction to benefit from precise disease management covering every stage of their clinical journey.

The establishment of the city-wide Chest Pain Center model enables rapid transfer of patients from primary hospitals to central hospitals, while the latter provide standardized diagnosis and treatment guidance to the former. This vertical integration facilitates the rational allocation and maximized utilization of medical resources across all levels, thereby advancing the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment for cardiovascular diseases in China.

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China elevated public health to an unprecedented level, with the "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline setting forth clear requirements in this regard. The foundational framework for China’s basic medical and healthcare system with distinct Chinese characteristics has been largely established, and a tiered diagnosis and treatment system has been initially put in place. To further implement the "Healthy China" strategy, the country is actively promoting innovation in emergency and critical care services. As the first pilot city for the nationwide model of Chest Pain Center construction, Wuxi aims to solidly advance the development of cardiovascular specialty medical alliances through its pilot initiatives, thereby providing practical and actionable solutions for the implementation of the national tiered diagnosis and treatment system.

In the development of the city-wide Chest Pain Center model, the Wuxi Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission will provide a comprehensive pilot program for the city-wide Chest Pain Center model under the guidance of experts from the Chinese Cardiovascular Health Alliance and ensure the implementation of the project. The Chinese Cardiovascular Health Alliance will offer professional advice and guidance on the pilot program for the city-wide Chest Pain Center model. As the first partner in the Chest Pain Center project and the most important strategic ally of the Chinese Cardiovascular Health Alliance, AstraZeneca has joined hands with multiple parties to support the construction of the chest pain treatment system during the establishment of Chest Pain Centers. In the implementation of the pilot program for the city-wide Chest Pain Center model, AstraZeneca will provide full-process support and, as an industry leader, collaborate with all stakeholders to explore the feasibility of implementing the city-wide Chest Pain Center model in other cities across China.

Xie Shoukun, Director of the Wuxi Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, stated that the Commission has always prioritized public health, striving to rescue every chest pain patient to the greatest extent possible and providing comprehensive protection for citizens with wholehearted dedication. The goal is to make Wuxi the city perceived by its residents as having the highest level of health and safety assurance. As the first pilot city for the nationwide model of Chest Pain Center construction, Wuxi aims to use the Chest Pain Center as an entry point for exploring new models, offering practical and feasible solutions for the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment in China through innovation and practice. The Wuxi City-wide Chest Pain Center Model seeks to provide concrete case studies for the application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the medical field, thereby creating more opportunities for integration and innovation across the healthcare industry chain.

Professor Ge Junbo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chairman of the China Cardiovascular Health Alliance, stated, “We analyzed nearly 7,000 cases of patients with myocardial infarction. The mortality rate for myocardial infarction treatment in non-Chest Pain Centers was approximately 5%, whereas in Chest Pain Centers, it could be reduced to below 3% (2.9%). This indicates that under the previous system, many patients with chest pain missed the golden window for treatment. The care model implemented by Chest Pain Centers is highly significant for patients with chest pain and is crucial for saving the lives of those experiencing acute chest pain. In the future, I hope to establish a national chest pain emergency network in China, ensuring that patients in more regions receive timely diagnosis and treatment.”

Feng Ji, General Manager of AstraZeneca China, stated, “Since 2015, AstraZeneca has focused on the disease areas most urgently needed by Chinese patients, including respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, oncology, and digestive diseases. By collaborating with cross-sector partners from government, industry, academia, research institutions, and healthcare, and leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) technology with Wuxi as a demonstration region, we have gradually established a health IoT network connecting medical institutions across different regions and at various tiers. This initiative helps improve the accessibility and efficiency of healthcare services in China, provides a practical pathway for the transformation and upgrading of China’s healthcare industry, and serves as an active practice and promotion of the goals outlined in the ‘Healthy China 2030’ plan and the ‘Innovation-Driven Development’ strategy.”

Xie Shoukun of the Wuxi Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, Huo Yong of the Chinese Cardiovascular Health Alliance, and Lai Minglong of AstraZeneca signed a memorandum. Hu Ruirong of the Bureau of Medical Administration and Hospital Management under the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Huang Qin, Vice Mayor of Wuxi, and Ge Junbo of the Chinese Cardiovascular Health Alliance witnessed the signing.