As Anguilla continues to place the delivery of healthcare on its front burners, the island is to be used in a pilot project in the Caribbean for what is intended to be lifesaving diagnostic technology to detect possible heart disease in patients before its actual onset. A machine to that effect has been endowed to the Government and the Health Authority of Anguilla, both of which are now collaborating with the providers regarding its use and the training of local health personnel.
Word of the endowment came on Friday, March 11, at a National Medical Symposium about the “Impact of Expert Care & Advanced Technologies on Quality Life & Healthcare Fiscal Planning”. Held at La Vue Conference Centre, the Symposium was in observance of the Fifth Anniversary of what is called “The Anguilla-Panama Critical Care Connection”. It is an arrangement with Panama whereby Anguilla is sending seriously injured, ill and otherwise traumatised patients to the South American Republic for low-cost, but professional, treatment and recovery.
Now, in addition to that service, MDabroad Networks and Medical Management LLC, based in the United States, a partner in the Symposium and the Anguilla-Panama arrangement, has introduced the new heart-testing technology to Anguilla referred to as “Soteria Cardiac Platform”. MDabroad has done this through Soteria Medical Systems, LLC, USA, represented by Dr. Jeffrey K. Raines, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School and the University of Miller School of Medicine. He is a distinguished cardiac researcher and inventor of the Soteria Cardiac Platform.
Symposium Moderator, Mr. S. Shai Gold, of MDabroad, spoke to The Anguillian about the machine which is now in Anguilla and “is hailed as the most effective diagnostic tool for primary care since the introduction of the EKG”. He stated: “Our organisation, which works for the Government of Anguilla, has decided to make available to the Health Authority and the Ministry of Health a unit – this brand new technology – for use for one year on a collaborative project. Dr. Ogunde [the Director of Medical Services in Anguilla] and our Professor, Jeff Raines, the inventor of the technology, will design a study that would screen 500-600 people as a yardstick that will be projected for the greater population of Anguilla.
“That sample group is very substantial and we are working out the details. We will first train the staff to operate the machine properly. This is non-invasive [technology] and there is no risk to the patient. It essentially looks like a combination of three blood pressure cuffs: one that goes on the thigh, one on the calf [below the knee] and one on the arm. There is no stress or pain involved and the brain of this new machine is really the bio-physiological algorithm that was invented by Professor Raines who has 40 years of experience as a Vascular Surgeon and Researcher. The end result will be an easy-to-understand report for both the physician and the patient.”
Mr. Gold continued: “This is a lifesaver as well as a fiscal planning tool for Government to project expenditure based on risk in the population. It is a simple test that previously was not available and we chose Anguilla for the pilot programme in the West Indies. Everybody knows about somebody in their 40s or 50s who dropped dead of a heart attack without prior symptoms; and then we see the widow and the children and say: ‘Oh my Lord, why doesn’t medical technology invent something to prevent that?’ Well, this is it. The Soteria Cardiac Exam is the thing that will prevent women from becoming widows, and children from becoming orphans, because it is about detecting disease in people who don’t even know they have disease.”
Dr. Raines joined Mr. Gold in speaking to The Anguillian about the machine which he (Professor Raines) invented, and which was launched in 2015 and cleared by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) .“The size is 21 inches by 21 inches and it is 55 inches high,” the professor explained. “This device measures volume change and pressure change. It is therefore able to measure arterial compliance. In other words – the elasticity of the arterial wall and the stiffness of the arterial wall; but the engineering term is compliance – change in volume divided by change in pressure.”
He further explained: “Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) is the major cause of death in the modern world – 52 percent of all deaths is due to that. How it manifests itself is by stiffening the arterial wall and we have invented a technology that determines the early stage of stiffening of the arterial wall. So we can identify those people early at risk of atherosclerosis and hopefully change their trajectory. That’s what it is all about. We are recommending that people at age 30 should be tested – that’s our starting point… The hope is that we can work out a pilot programme to screen people and save 500 or 600 [by] finding out how many of them are at risk, and try to modify their risk so that we can reduce the disease process, its effects, and also the cost of treating it.”
A number of persons in Anguilla, including the Minister of Social Development and Health, Mr. Evans McNiel Rogers, and the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Bonnie Richardson-Lake, underwent the tests. The testing was conducted in a clinic set up at La Vue Boutique Hotel.
Mr. Rogers summed up the expected benefits of the new cardiac technology to Anguilla in a brief interview with The Anguillian: “I see it as a very positive benefit,” he commented. “I am going to do the Soteria test [like a number of other persons] and I have no doubt that I may not be critical but, at this point in my life, it is necessary because I may be able to mitigate or intervene in some of the things that may take place later on as I age. I am really elated, euphoric, so to speak, that Anguilla was chosen for the pilot programme. A number of our local physicians working on the island were at the session to have a look at the equipment. It will be left here so that we can test it against known norms…and validate it, so to speak.”
Earlier, the Minister told the gathering : “This technology essentially provides improved population health and budgeting for healthcare. MDabroad has been extremely generous by endowing the Soteria Cardiac Platform to the Health Authority of Anguilla for a year and we are grateful for that.”
