Importance of acute cardiac care registries at the national level

Improving organization and patient care quality in intensive care units is increasingly important as intensive care unit diagnostic and therapeutic procedures account for a growing proportion of hospital services. We identified the lack of comprehensive national and international registries available in the contemporary literature. This paper aims to describe and analyze cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) network at the national level in Croatia and its comparison with more developed countries. Thirty-four representatives from all Croatian acute hospitals (response rate of 100%) filled in a web based questionnaire on CICU organization and competence during September and October 2016. Organization and available technical procedures for health care in general, and especially in very expensive CICU treatment, highly depends on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. That is why one could expect that Croatia, with the second lowest GDP among European Union countries and 4.7 CICU per million inhabitants will have worse results in this field in comparison with most of these countries. Results such as one nurse responsible for a mean of 2.7 CICU patients, 52% of cardiologists among physicians during working hours but 37% during night shifts, 24/7 transesophageal echocardiography in only 26.5% of CICUs, one-third without therapeutic hypothermia, and 23.5% without extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment are some of these results, revealing much room for improvement. This representative, nationwide sample of Croatian CICUs also demonstrated considerable variation of key elements of structures with respect to hospital size, academic status and financial issues, as well as a trend towards current guidelines. This kind of investigation is very important for proposing standards, reimbursement master plan, or quality assessment of the national health system.