Acadian Ambulance, Hospitals Expedite Heart Care on Louisiana Medical News

Acadian Ambulance, Hospitals Expedite Heart Care

By: MARSHA SILLS

Acadian Ambulance has partnered with Acadiana-area hospitals to offer new technology that expedites care for heart-attack patients.

Acadian paramedics are now able to wirelessly transmit patients' EKG readings from the field to the emergency room or directly to the on-call cardiologist to determine if an angioplasty procedure is necessary.

This early reading has dramatically reduced the "door-to-balloon time" at Southwest Medical Center in Lafayette and Dauterive Hospital in New Iberia since the hospitals came online with the technology two weeks ago.

Ideally, a patient suffering a heart attack should receive an angioplasty, a balloon procedure that clears a blocked artery, within 90 minutes of arriving at the hospital. The time is a benchmark used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Every minute that the patient is not treated equates to heart muscle damage.

Research has shown that decreasing that response time equates to higher survival rates and speedier patient recovery.

"In the last two weeks, we created a record of 67 minutes," said Dr. Raghotham Patlola. "We've saved 25 to 30 minutes in some cases."

The new record at Dauterive is 70 minutes, according to hospital officials.

Other area hospitals are expected to come online with the technology soon, said Dr. Ross Judice, medical director of Acadian.

Southwest and Acadian recently demonstrated how the technology enhances response time during a simulation at the hospital.

Medics hooked a "patient" with chest pains to the EKG monitor and transmitted the reading at 10:14 a.m. Within seconds, a computer in the hospital's cath lab chimed with the notification.

"Before, we would capture the 12-lead EKG and call the hospital to alert the (emergency room) of what we see," said Greg LeBlanc, an Acadian paramedic and operations supervisor.

"With the transmission, the doctor can see exactly what we're looking at and make the determination."

The technology is expected to save on resources. It takes time to mobilize the cath lab team, especially after-hours.

"In the past, we were paged but it could have been a false alarm," said Patlola. "Now, you have a qualified cardiologist looking at the EKG and making the call."

The service is made available through Physio-Control's LIFENET STEMI (ST-segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction) Management Solution system. Hospitals subscribe to the service made available through Physio-Control, a division of MedTronic.

No servers or hardware installation is required to use LIFENET. The software enables hospitals to choose to whom and where transmissions are sent.

In the past, EKG monitors in Acadian's ambulances were able to transmit readings via phone lines, but it was often a time-consuming and cumbersome process, Judice said. And the readings sent via fax to the hospital weren't always clear, he said.

Now the data is transmitted wirelessly via mobile devices in each unit.

The technology is available in only one other Acadian service area in the state — West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, Judice said.

"We have requests from hospitals all over the state for this technology," Judice said.

Reprinted with permission from the Baton Rouge Advocate. Published: Nov 22, 2008 — Page: 1BA