Geographic Areas of Responsibility Among Percutaneous Coronary Intervention-capable Hospitals in the Philippines

Abstract

Background: Defining geographic areas of responsibility sheds light on the current status of the acute coronary syndrome healthcare system and the unmet needs that will help plan for improvement. Methods: The list of registered percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)-capable hospitals and the total members of adult interventional cardiologists per island from the Philippine Society of Cardiovascular Catheterization and Interventions as of January 2022 was used. A map was created by establishing a 120 km radius around each PCI-capable hospital, which was then employed to classify provinces as either covered, partially covered or not covered. Results: The analysis included 244 adult interventional cardiologists and 54 PCI-capable hospitals. Luzon registered the highest percentage of interventional cardiologists (85.7%) and PCI-capable hospitals (78.9%), followed by Visayas (8.6%) and (11.5%), and Mindanao (5.7%) and (9.6%), respectively. Most PCI-capable hospitals were privately owned (79.6%) versus government owned (20.4%). The largest percentage of PCI-capable hospitals was in Metro Manila (46.3%), followed by Cebu (9.26%), Laguna and Pampanga (5.57%), Benguet, Davao del Sur, Misamis Oriental, Nueva Ecija and Iloilo (3.7%). Only 46.4% of provinces were covered; 34.1% were partially covered and 19.5% were not covered. Conclusion: Most PCI-capable hospitals in the Philippines are privately owned and centrally located on an island. There may be a need to add PCI-capable hospitals that are government owned, equally distributed and strategically placed in partially and non-covered provinces.