Global Heart Network

Abstract

Background: Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, and congenital heart disease affects just under one percent of live births. Inequality stems from lack of access to timely diagnosis and life-saving intervention, particularly across low and middle-income countries where specialists, infrastructure, funding and coordinated referral systems are scarce. Traditional humanitarian cardiac surgical missions, while valuable, are often episodic and fragmented. Approach: The Global Heart Network (GHN) was established to address these disparities through a technology-enabled humanitarian ecosystem connecting patients, clinicians, hospitals, volunteers, donors and non-governmental organizations on a unified platform. The architecture combines a Wix-based community portal, the open-source Frappe Health clinical information system, an Orthanc PACS for medical imaging, and Google Meet for secure telemedicine. Implementation: The platform supports the complete patient journey: registration, record and image collection, multidisciplinary heart team review, treatment planning, funding and logistics, intervention at partner centers, and longitudinal follow-up across an international network spanning India, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and Fiji. Conclusion: By translating the humanitarian model championed by the involved team members into a continuously connected digital ecosystem, GHN offers a scalable and sustainable framework for delivering equitable cardiovascular care to underserved populations worldwide.