The initiative strengthened cardiovascular care in primary and secondary settings, providing new training and equipment to providers to establish infrastructure for improved cardiology care outside of specialist settings; a detailed situational analysis informed the initiative’s design and provided evidence supporting the intervention; strong leadership by senior management at Vilnius University Hospital provided technical expertise and generated stakeholder support, while backing from the Ministry of Health added legitimacy to activities; extensive engagement of providers from the beginning was necessary for overcoming an individualistic culture and building collaborative relationships; distribution of a standardized cardiology equipment package to participating locations established basic quality standards and helped enable providers to implement new training.
