HealthCanal.com
DALLAS — Results of a national survey from the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline ® STEMI program found similar characteristics and challenges with regional care systems that treat patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) , the most severe form of heart attack. Ideally, the initial 9-1-1 call activates the STEMI system when someone suffers a heart attack. The continuum includes the care patients receive in route to and at hospitals.
Between April 2008 and January 2010, 381 STEMI-care systems, representing 899 hospitals in 47 states, responded to the Mission: Lifeline survey. Systems included at least one hospital that performs the artery-opening procedure percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and one emergency medical service (EMS) group. “It’s essential to get competing hospitals and separate EMS agencies within a community to work as a team to provide optimal care for heart attack patients,” said James G. Jollis, M.D., the study’s lead author and professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
“Since Mission: Lifeline launched, we’ve seen major improvements in the coordinated care of heart attack patients,” said Christopher Granger, M.D., study co-author, chair of the Mission: Lifeline STEMI advisory working group and professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. “Paramedics are making the STEMI diagnosis earlier, patients are being transported or transferred to appropriate hospitals more quickly, and blocked arteries are being opened faster ― all translating to more lives saved.”