By Urvaksh Karkaria
Florida Times-Union
Copyright 2007 The Florida Times-Union
JACKSONVILLE, Fla — When it comes to treating a heart attack, wasted minutes can mean lost years.
To help deliver care ASAP, Flagler Hospital has installed technology that can trim the time between the onset of a heart attack and when treatment begins.
The St. Augustine-based hospital said it is the first in Northeast Florida to install a $40,000 receiver that allows St. Johns County Fire Rescue to instantly transmit the patient’s electrocardiogram from the ambulance to the Emergency Department. The LifeNet service is expected to be fully operational by the end of next week, Flagler spokesman Peter Bacon said Monday.
The early notification, hospital officials hope, will reduce heart damage, improve survival rates and prevent heart failure.
The technology called LifeNet EKG, “allows [doctors] to get the EKG at the earliest possible time rather than waiting after transport and arrival in the emergency room,” said Flagler’s Chief of Cardiology, Howard Baker III.
Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department will also install technology that allows EKGs to be transmitted electronically from its rescue units, department spokesman Tom Francis said. Funding is secured, Francis said, and the department is evaluating potential vendors of the technology.
The LifeNet system allows emergency crews to transmit the EKG to the ER, via cell phone.
Until now, EKGs taken in the ambulance were typically hand-delivered upon arrival at the ER.
An EKG records the electrical activity of the heart. During a heart attack, there are distinctive changes in the pattern of that recording. Patients who have chest pains or display symptoms of a heart attack typically undergo EKGs.
The LifeNet system, installed in nine St. Johns County ambulances, buys the patient precious time - allowing doctors to get a leg up in diagnosing the problem and possibly devising a course of treatment, even before the patient has arrived at the hospital.
“If you’re a young man, having a heart attack in the front wall of your heart, you’re ... killing [heart] muscle starting in about 30 minutes,” Baker said. “Moving as promptly as possible saves significant amounts of muscle,” which is irreplaceable.
“God only gives you so much muscle,” Baker added.
The LifeNet system can potentially reduce “door-to-balloon time” by 30 minutes or more, Baker said. “Door-to-balloon time” refers to the time a patient enters the hospital to the time a balloon is inflated for angioplasty, a procedure used to open a blocked heart artery.
Using the real-time EKG information, doctors can also direct paramedics to take the patient directly to the appropriate department, say the cardiac catheterization lab, rather than have the patient clog up an already overcrowded ER.
But the LifeNet system has its challenges. If cell phone coverage is spotty, the EKG might not go through to the hospital, said Jeremy Robshaw, spokesman with St. Johns County Fire Rescue.
The LifeNet system attempts to send the EKG three times. After the third attempt, the paramedic must resend it.
Despite the potential for delays because of spotty cell phone coverage, Baker said, the technology is “still the fastest way to get the information to the receiving hospital.”