How one rural Arkansas county is using integrated telehealth, communication, and logistics technology to treat patients faster
BOZEMAN, Mont.- Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, published new details on Arkansas-based Saline Memorial Hospital’s record improvements in patient care. The Saline Memorial Hospital Case Study reveals the unique challenges care teams were facing with a rapidly growing and dispersed population, and the solutions they found to markedly reduce treatment times, establish secure and reliable ECG transmissions, and improve real-time care team communication.
As the only American College of Cardiology Accredited Chest Pain Center in rural Saline County, Saline Memorial Hospital was looking for a way to reduce their treatment times for patients arriving via EMS. According to the ACC and the AHA, the standard door-to-balloon time is 90 minutes; however, Saline Memorial was struggling to keep up, with a median of 105 minutes. With the help of Pulsara, within four months they were able to drop this time by 28% to 75 minutes—15 minutes under the ACC and AHA recommendation.
“That’s the difference between someone living and dying when you get to them that quick, because as heart attacks evolve, that patient is at risk for going into cardiogenic shock and having arrhythmia issues,” shared Jeannie Otts, RT, R, CV, ARRT, Cardiac Cath Lab Director. “By putting the team in motion and moving towards that patient earlier, and having this communication that we can all see and use at the same time, it makes a difference in the outcome.”
Otts attributes the major difference in cutting down those first medical contact-to-device times to the reliable and efficient ECG transmission available through the Pulsara platform. “That’s been the key factor that we—the whole team, from the ED, the cardiologists, and the Cath lab team—are able to get that ECG in one transmission. We all see it and know what we’re dealing with early on. We’re not having to wait until the patient gets here to say, ‘Oh yeah, this is a STEMI, call the team out.’”
Another prominent benefit Saline Memorial care teams have experienced from the Pulsara platform is improvement in their team communication—resulting in even better patient care.
“Once [the ECG] comes through, everyone knows who has been activated and who has seen it,” said Otts. “As we are starting to use [Pulsara] more, we are also utilizing the chat tool more to talk about the patients and send over that information. So it’s changed many parts of our communication in STEMI. It’s a good system where you can close the loop and get all that information back to the teams who started on the front end—they can see where they ended it all.”
After seeing the success Saline Memorial’s STEMI team has had with Pulsara, the hospital looks forward to expanding its usage of the app into additional units, such as trauma and stroke—and encouraging other Arkansas health systems to do the same. “We’re wanting to bring trauma and stroke online,” said Otts. “The more we use it, the more it becomes second nature… We’re able to not just cut down our first medical contact-to-device time, but also change our outcomes. Pulsara just touches so many facets of those patients.”
For more details and access to the full report on how Saline Memorial reduced treatment times, established secure and reliable ECG transmissions, and improved real-time care team communication, download the case study here.
About Saline Memorial Hospital
Saline Memorial Hospital is the only American College of Cardiology Accredited Chest Pain Center in the rural area of Saline County, Arkansas. Serving over 120,000 people, Saline Memorial is licensed for 177 beds and has its own EMS service (MedTran) that brings in 85 to 90% of their patients. According to Brian Mann, the Saline Memorial Director of Growth and Outreach, Saline County is and has been “one of the fastest growing counties in Arkansas for around a decade.”
About Pulsara
It’s about people. During the most critical moments in life, Pulsara unites distributed teams and fragmented technologies as dynamic events evolve on a scalable communications and logistics platform, improving the lives of people in need and those who serve them.
We envision a world where needless suffering is eliminated because communities can unite and communicate without friction. Studies report an average decreased treatment time of approximately 30% when using Pulsara, the evidence-based standard of care. For more information, visit www.pulsara.com.