Telehealth for heart patients

He had moved to the Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora (HESE), a hospital in the rural Alentejo. Here, in the country’s interior, around 150 kilometers from Lisbon, Patrício is working with Siemens Healthineers to develop one of the most modern and innovative interventional cardiology centers in the country. Thanks to its long-term partnership with Siemens Healthineers, the integrated cardiovascular center in Évora not only boasts telemedicine solutions and consulting services for process optimization, but also the latest imaging technologies. This meant that Patrício and his team could perform transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) on Rosa. The procedure involves implanting an aortic valve into the beating heart via a catheter and without general anesthesia. HESE has the only cath lab in the south of Portugal and outside of Lisbon that can use this minimally invasive technique in heart surgery.

This is an innovative technology that Rosa could trust. He says he felt that he was in good hands even before the intervention. Although Lisbon and Évora are relatively far apart, the telemonitoring system meant Rosa was in permanent contact with Patrício’s team even before he underwent surgery. Every morning for many weeks, he used the devices he had been loaned to record his weight, blood pressure, blood SpO2 levels, and heart rate. He then sent the data using a smartphone app to HESE, where three clinical staff members are assigned exclusively to evaluate patients’ vital signs.

For Constança Pires, this dream is already a reality. In mid-August, Patrício implanted a new valve in her heart using the TAVI procedure. “After a few days I was fit again and I have since been able to lead a relatively normal life,” says the 79-year-old from Evoramonte. She’s a little annoyed with herself that she waited almost five years. “It got to the point where I could hardly leave the house, I had so little strength.” Her garden with its olive and citrus trees lay untended. She and her husband Lúcio could no longer take care of it. Shopping and cooking were also difficult for her. For a long time Pires resisted a heart operation out of fear that her ribcage would have to be opened. However, when she had another dizzy spell in July and was told about the TAVI procedure and telemonitoring that was now available at HESE, she finally consented to the intervention.