When a patient has complex heart disease, every minute counts. Doctors often have to make split-second decisions about the best way to treat blocked arteries. A new study looked at how 'real-time' decision making—where specialists join an online meeting during the procedure—compares to the traditional method of meeting face-to-face after the surgery is done.
Researchers followed 490 patients with severe coronary artery disease across three centers. They found that the real-time approach was just as safe as the traditional way, with similar rates of major complications over one year. However, the real-time method significantly improved how the hospital functioned. Patients in the real-time group waited a median of 2 days for their final therapy, compared to 5 days for those in the conventional group. It also led to lower costs and less heavy workloads for specialists.
While the results are promising for hospital efficiency, there is a catch. The study noted that while the real-time team worked faster and more efficiently, they actually had lower rates of shared decision-making compared to the traditional method. Because this was done across only three centers, more research is needed to see if these results hold true in different types of hospitals.
