By Wendy Anders

One of San José, Costa Rica’s main public hospitals, the Hospital México, announced it has succeeded in reducing wait times for heart surgery by 652 percent.

The wait time has been reduced from 745 days to 99 days, said Dr. Juan Antonio Ugalde, deputy director of the medical center, due to a special project adopted in May 2015 which has allowed for a flexible surgery schedule and improved patient diagnostics.

In addition, the main diagnostic procedure for heart disease, known as a heart cath, or cardiac catheterization, now has a wait time of 23 days, down from a previous 338 days, said Ugalde.

Among the strategies to decrease wait times approved by the Board of Directors of the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS), which runs the country’s public health system, include enhanced consultation among the country’s cardiac specialists to study, develop, and prioritze treatment plans for cardiac cases, and scheduling special surgery days.

According to WebMD.com: “Cardiac catheterization (also called coronary angiogram) is an invasive imaging procedure that tests for heart disease by allowing doctors to “see” the inside of the heart arteries. During the test, a long, narrow tube, called a catheter, is inserted into a blood vessel in your arm or leg and guided to your heart with the aid of a special X-ray machine. Contrast dye is injected through the catheter so that X-ray movies of your valves, coronary arteries, and heart chambers can be created.”