June 2022, Philips Foundation hosted its fourth webinar of a series on strengthening access to quality healthcare for underserved communities. In this webinar, we discussed some of our initiatives with cardiologists and other experts to explore ways on how to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
About You will hear from our expert partners how we strengthen awareness and preventive behavior as well as enhance health system readiness to improve heart care outcomes. You can watch the recording, or read our editorial we will publish later on, based on the discussions that took place during the webinar.
Background information Cardiovascular and coronary artery disease is on the rise in low and middle-income countries around the world. Unfortunately, health systems in many of these settings are ill-prepared, leading to poor health outcomes among patients who suffer from acute or chronic cardiac conditions. There is still limited knowledge among the general population of preventive behavior, or on how to recognize and act on symptoms that may point to heart failure. There are also disparities in heart health outcomes in high-income countries, which may indicate that cardiology care is not equally accessible or suitably designed for the whole population. Philips Foundation supports a range of initiatives seeking to find ways to structurally improve access to, and preparedness for, heart care across the board – from raising public awareness, enhancing community-level prevention, and first aid, to strengthening cardiology health systems and health workers’ capabilities at primary care levels and beyond.
This webinar brings together partners and key opinion leaders to discuss ongoing efforts to improve access to cardiovascular services in underserved communities. The webinar will address the topic as follows:
Dr. Muthoni Ntonjira is currently General Manager of Philips East Africa and holds a Master of Medicine in Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, and an MBA in Healthcare Management.