Viện Tim Institut du Coeur: Success of a Congenital Heart Disease Center in a Developing Country.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the Viện Tim Institute du Coeur is to provide high quality cardiac surgical care to the Vietnamese population with 25% of care allocated to the indigent. This article discusses the history; functional and financial implementation of creating a long-term fully sustainable adult and pediatric cardiac surgery center in Southeast Asia in a developing country.

METHODS: The Institut du Coeur in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is a fully functional and financially solvent cardiac surgery center that was formed 28 years ago. It was borne from the Alain Carpentier Foundation which oversees its activity and the Centre Médical International which is an outpatient clinic in Ho Chi Minh City and continues to financially support and oversee the development and future of the Institute. This article details many of the key components to the development of this sustainable program and its evolution.

RESULTS: Since 1996, over 25,000 patients with complicated adult and congenital cardiac disease have been treated at the infirmary with support from the Alain Carpentier Foundation since it was established in 1992. The hospital has also performed surgery and treatment to poor patients across Vietnam with over 6,700 impoverished patients having had free operations with an estimated cost of VND230 billion (US$10.2 million). In addition, 96 surgeons and nearly 500 medical staff have carried out charitable health checks on 12,000 patients in many provinces and cities throughout Vietnam. Through profit sharing with the Centre Médical International and corporate and personal donations, proceeds are given to the Institute to help perform roughly 25% of all cardiac surgery free of charge to indigent patients in need of congenital heart surgery.

CONCLUSION: The Viện Tim Institute du Coeur has stayed true to its goal of offering high quality cardiac surgical care including congenital heart surgery to a large patient population with one quarter directed to the medically indigent. It also continues to empower and train the health care professionals locally and throughout the country. Creation and growth through this model may help provide a fully functional and financially self-sustaining institution in a developing nation.