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LIFENET system can help save lives of heart-attack victims
YOUNGSTOWN
SDLqBeat the Clock,” a TV show started in the 1950s, was a game show in which contestants had to complete stunts within a set amount of time.
Beating the clock is also the goal of emergency-medical personnel when a person suffers a heart attack, but it’s no game.
Time can literally be a matter of life or death.
As each second passes after a heart attack, heart muscle is starving for oxygen and dying. Every little bit of time counts, and just a few minutes can make a huge difference. It can save a life, said Mariann Pacak, director of the Heart and Vascular Center at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
“Time is muscle, and we know when a heart-attack patient comes in, we can’t waste a single minute,” she said.
To treat heart-attack patients more quickly, on Dec. 21, Humility of Mary Health Partners put into service the LIFENET STEMI Management System, which helps shorten time to treatment by electronically connecting EMS personnel on the scene of a heart attack with the hospital emergency department.
The patient with a suspected heart attack is hooked to a 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG) unit. The emergency-medical technician transmits the results via wireless modem to a hospital that has the capacity to receive it, said Paul Filipowicz, HMHP Chest Pain Center coordinator.
The real-time communication between EMS and hospital emergency department personnel has significant time-saving benefits.
The emergency room physician can diagnose the type of heart attack.
If it is a STEMI, an ST elevated myocardial infarction in which the coronary artery is completely blocked and the heart muscle being supplied by that artery begins to die immediately, the patient will be taken directly to St. Elizabeth’s, Pacak said. That eliminates the time it takes to transfer a patient from one hospital to another.
Also, Filipowicz said, if the heart attack occurs after normal hospital hours, hospital emergency department and lab personnel can be called out while the patient is being transported rather than waiting to get to the emergency room for the diagnosis and to call out personnel.
The LIFENET system improves care and outcomes for patients, particularly those suffering from a STEMI, Pacak said.
The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology guidelines recommend treatment of a heart attack in 90 minutes or less to improve the outcome for the patient.
HMHP’s average “door-to-balloon” time — the time period between arriving at an emergency room to the moment of a balloon catheter surgery to open arteries — was 76.5 minutes in 2010, and with LIFENET, the expectation is to reduce that time. In one instance this year in which LIFENET was used, the time was 56 minutes, she said.
HMHP has partnered with area EMS agencies on the LIFENET system. By having the patient’s EKG in advance of arrival at the hospital, not only can treatment decisions be made quickly, but if necessary, the patient can be referred to the appropriate treatment center while en route, said Pacak.
The system is in place at all four HMHP hospitals: St. Joseph Health Center in Warren, St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, St. Elizabeth Boardman Health Center, and St. Elizabeth Emergency and Diagnostic Center in Austintown.