By Peter Segall
The Bakersfield Californian
KERN COUNTY, Calif. — Starting in February, Kern County will be the first county in California to deploy new AI-powered electrocardiogram machines to more quickly detect heart attacks in patients in the field.
Kern County Public Health announced Thursday it had recently purchased 100 new Kardia 12L handheld electrocardiogram machines, also known as ECG or ECG machines.
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Unlike the county’s current portable ECG machines, which need 12 physical connections, or leads, to a patient before a reading can be made, Kardia’s machines need only five such connections.
“They are small, ultra-light, fast and easy to deploy and designed specifically for the realities of emergency response,” said Jeff Farris, EMS program manager for the Kern County Public Health Department.
“They allow crews to obtain high-quality 12-lead ECGs in seconds, even in challenging environments.”
They can even send the information directly to hospitals while emergency services are en route with the patient.
During Thursday’s news conference, a “patient” sat to the side with one of Kardia’s devices attached. An EMS worker stood nearby holding a tablet with live readings of the patient’s diagnostics.
“It sends that tracing to the cloud, it gets reviewed and sent back; when it gets back here into the iPad, it has a diagnosis on it,” Farris explained.
“At the same time they did that, it also sent that 12-lead tracing to all three of our cardiac receiving hospitals at the same time.”
County officials hope to have the units deployed with all Kern County EMS services — both public and private — by Feb. 1.
“All of the first responding emergency medical technicians will be equipped with these,” Kern County Public Health Director Brynn Carrigan told The Californian.
“So they’ll be Hall Ambulance, Liberty Ambulance, our fire agencies, so all of them will receive them.”
The Kardia units cost $1,800 apiece, Farris said, well below the $20,000 to $60,000 that current portable ECG machines can run.
“Right now, before Feb. 1, if you call 911 with chest pain, and a fire engine shows up, say you live in Pine Mountain Club, and a fire engine shows up with EMTs on board, they cannot run a 12-lead,” Farris said.
“They cannot see what’s happening inside your body. So they have to wait for the paramedic to get there.”
Officials said Thursday Kern would be the first county in California to use the technology.
“It’s something that we’re interested in,” Carrigan said. “We wanted that earlier detection of heart attacks within the field and we found this device and looked at how it could be implemented.”
Units already equipped with the larger equipment will continue to use those devices, Carrigan said, and the new devices will be distributed to EMS service that don’t currently have ECG machines.
“This initiative equips basic life support response units with 12-lead ECGs, allowing first responders to identify heart attacks more quickly, and we’re notifying receiving hospitals sooner so they can prepare for the incoming patients,” Carrigan said.
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