• Derrick Y Tam, David Naimark, Madhu K Natarajan, Graham Woodward, Garth Oakes, Mirna Rahal, Kali Barrett, Yasin A Khan, Raphael Ximenes, Stephen Mac, Beate Sander, and Harindra C Wijeysundera.
• Division of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Schulich Heart Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Can J Cardiol. 2020 Aug 1; 36 (8): 1308-1312.

AbstractIn Ontario on March 16, 2020, a directive was issued to all acute care hospitals to halt nonessential procedures in anticipation of a potential surge in COVID-19 patients. This included scheduled outpatient cardiac surgical and interventional procedures that required the use of intensive care units, ventilators, and skilled critical care personnel, given that these procedures would draw from the same pool of resources required for critically ill COVID-19 patients. We adapted the COVID-19 Resource Estimator (CORE) decision analytic model by adding a cardiac component to determine the impact of various policy decisions on the incremental waitlist growth and estimated waitlist mortality for 3 key groups of cardiovascular disease patients: coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, and arrhythmias. We provided predictions based on COVID-19 epidemiology available in real-time, in 3 phases. First, in the initial crisis phase, in a worst case scenario, we showed that the potential number of waitlist related cardiac deaths would be orders of magnitude less than those who would die of COVID-19 if critical cardiac care resources were diverted to the care of COVID-19 patients. Second, with better local epidemiology data, we predicted that across 5 regions of Ontario, there may be insufficient resources to resume all elective outpatient cardiac procedures. Finally in the recovery phase, we showed that the estimated incremental growth in waitlist for all cardiac procedures is likely substantial. These outputs informed timely data-driven decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the provision of cardiovascular care.Copyright © 2020 Canadian Cardiovascular Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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