World Heart Day

Getting devices into the country is difficult, approvals are slow, and funding is ad hoc at best. Currently, New Zealand lacks a clear and consistent way to assess and fund new heart technology.

This World Heart Day, we're calling for the country's funding and assessment processes to change, so New Zealanders can access the most effective and up-to-date cardiac care they need.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death globally. In Aotearoa, it kills 1 in 5 people, and costs the country's health system and economy $13.8 billion every year.

The technology to help reduce those numbers exists. Overseas, an alternative to open-heart surgery for certain situations, and a temporary heart pump have already proven effective at saving lives and reducing long-term costs. But in New Zealand, compassionate access is available only in some regions.

The problem is how New Zealand decides which of these get funded. Right now, cardiac devices go through the same assessment process as pharmaceuticals — a process built for pills, not for devices.

Stents, pacemakers, heart valve replacements and heart pumps save lives. Our approval and funding system has to keep pace.

Cardiology is the fastest-moving frontier in medical device innovation — which is why, this World Heart Day, the Cardiac and Respiratory Foundation NZ is calling for a pilot approval and funding pathway for cardiac devices. This has to be separate from the pharmaceutical process, and built on five ideas:

• Conditional, time-limited approval, tied to mandatory real-world evidence collection through device registries.
• Fast-tracked review of upgrades — minor hardware or software improvements to an already-approved device shouldn’t need a full resubmission from scratch.
• Assess cost and clinical benefit together, in a single accelerated process, not sequential reviews stacked years apart.
• Ring-fenced innovation funding, so a device isn’t blocked by a hospital’s tight annual budget cycle when the long-term system savings are clear.
• Formal seats for practising heart specialists — including those who perform these procedures and those who manage heart rhythm problems — at every stage: approval, funding, and reviewing how a device performs after launch.

Heart technology now moves at the speed of consumer electronics — yet we still assess and fund it with a process built for pills. It is time New Zealand gave cardiac devices a pathway of their own.

An estimated 1 in 250 Kiwis have Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH), but less than 2% are diagnosed. FH is an inherited condition that causes dangerously high cholesterol - you could be fit and healthy but still at risk. That's why we're urging everyone to 'Know Your Numbers' by getting your cholesterol checked.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a common inherited genetic condition. People with FH are born with dangerously high levels of ‘bad’ (LDL) cholesterol in the blood from birth, leading to a significantly higher risk of early heart disease.

The risk of heart disease is approx. 20x higher in untreated FH patients. And if a parent has FH, there's a 50% chance their child will inherit it.

You could be at risk of FH if you have:

• Family health history of early heart attacks or heart disease
• Women in your family had heart conditions under 60 years old
• Men in your family had heart conditions under 55 years old