Since the launch of the Stent-Save a Life! initiative in Argentina 3 years ago, the team is proud to have achieved the most challenging task: put an entire country in motion!

Following the initial mapping that depicted the real status of STEMI management in the country, two main barriers were identified:

• A fragmented health system without any integration of the various sectors (public, private and social security insurance)
• A lack of reperfusion culture at the health practitioner level

In order to start promoting the reperfusion culture in the medical community, conferences around the country and publications in local journals were organised, both highlighting the importance of guideline complying therapy and on-time reperfusion for STEMI patients.
The local Stent-Save a Life! Argentine website was also recently launched. It is intended to be a dynamic and interactive tool providing information and better interaction between all the actors involved in STEMI patient management.

Simultaneously – with the objective to create a reperfusion culture in the model centres – a door-to-balloon program was developed to provide continuous feedback encouraging to further minimize delays and improve clinical outcomes and prognosis of STEMI patients.
Two years on, more than 40 centres currently participate in the program and contribute to collect relevant information from more than 3,000 patients.

The continuous efforts of Stent-Save a Life! Argentina have recently gained recognition from the cardiological community and the team even achieved a distinction in the National Argentine Congress of the Argentine Federation of Cardiology for the work entitled “Stent-Save a Life! Argentina: STEMI treatment in 38 model centres”.

Thanks to these recent achievements, some meetings with the National Ministry of Health were initiated to outline the initial steps for the development of a nation-wide STEMI network involving public hospitals.

Argentina is on the move!