George W. Vetrovec, MD, MACC. American College of Cardiology – ACC.org Interventional Cardiology
Key Points:
As of Mid-June 2020
- Nearly one-third of catheterization laboratories have resumed normal reentry of cases.
- The greatest barrier to reentry is patients’ concern about the risk of COVID- 19 exposure which remains an important educational challenge.
- Operators tend to perform complete revascularization (avoiding staging) to minimize hospital days and admissions.
- Laboratories tend to match physician skills and experience to speci!c cases to optimize results and avoid complications.
- These results suggest a significant improvement in CV re-opening of cardiac catheterization services emphasizing efficiency of operations such as optimal operator selection for each case and most importantly, emphasis on single procedure revascularization without staging.