AI-powered cardiac care across Belgium’s AZORG Health System reduces treatment delays, improves heart attack detection, and supports more than 350 clinicians each month
AALST, BELGIUM — June 2026 — The Heart Center Aalst announced one-year results following the implementation of PMcardio throughout the six-hospital AZORG Health System in Belgium. Since 2025, the AI-driven platform assists more than 350 clinicians monthly and has analyzed over 32,800 Electrocardiograms (ECGs). Key outcomes include the identification of more than 500 heart attacks and an average 48-minute reduction in time to treatment. In complex cases, the system has enabled treatment even up to 6 hours earlier.
Every year, more than 15,000 Belgians die from coronary heart disease. Every minute of delay to treatment increases the damage to the heart muscle — and the risk of death. In real-world care, delays are worsened by fragmented workflows between emergency medical services (EMS), emergency departments, and cardiology teams, as well as variability in ECG diagnostics.
The deployment of PMcardio, coordinated by the Heart Center Aalst, connects six AZORG hospitals, four affiliated hospitals, 15 EMS providers, and more than 100 regional family physicians into a single AI-powered cardiac care system. PMcardio is now used by more than 350 clinicians each month across EMS, emergency departments, cardiology, and primary care to accurately interpret ECGs using artificial intelligence and facilitate care coordination of cardiac patients.
Communication between care teams has become substantially more efficient through centralized digital workflows and data transmission in real time, with all interactions now time-stamped and logged. Since managing all heart attacks patients through the PMcardio-enabled pathway, the network achieved a median time to treatment of 64 minutes—well within the European Society of Cardiology guidelines—and improved guideline compliance by more than 50 percent.
“PMcardio fundamentally changed how we coordinate acute cardiac care across our entire network,” said Eric Wyffels, MD MPH eMBA, Chair & Managing Director of Heart Center Aalst at the AZORG Health System. “We are treating patients faster and improving coordination between paramedics, emergency physicians, and cardiology teams.”
PMcardio has proven to be especially transformative in identifying subtle heart attacks that are often missed on initial ECG review. The AI model was specifically trained to recognize early signs of heart attacks, learning from millions of ECG recordings—far beyond what any cardiologist could review during a lifetime of clinical practice.
“This deployment validates that AI can improve not only ECG interpretation, but the entire operational workflow of acute cardiac care,” said Dr. Anthony Demolder, PhD, Clinical Pathway Lead at Powerful Medical. “Health systems worldwide are facing increasing pressure to reduce treatment delays, standardize care, and optimize specialist capacity. PMcardio was built to solve exactly that challenge.”
In addition to acute cardiac care, family physicians across the region are using the PMcardio platform to accelerate diagnosis and referral of arrhythmias and heart failure directly from standard ECGs, helping patients access specialist care earlier and reducing delays in treatment initiation.
PMcardio is CE-marked in Europe as a Class IIb medical device under the Medical Device Regulation (MDR). The platform is available to hospitals and health systems through PMcardio for Organizations.
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About Heart Center Aalst
The Heart Center Aalst, part of the AZORG health system, is one of Europe’s leading tertiary, non-university cardiology centers and a recognized reference center for advanced cardiovascular care. Renowned for its clinical excellence, innovation, and research leadership, the center delivers comprehensive, patient-centered care across the full spectrum of cardiovascular disease. With a multidisciplinary team of internationally recognized cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, researchers, and specialized healthcare professionals, Heart Center Aalst continues to advance the field through pioneering research, education, and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies that improve patient outcomes worldwide.
For more information about AZORG visit: www.azorg.be.
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