MOUNT VERNON — People who suffer heart attacks in Knox County are now getting faster care, thanks to new technology.
Through the generosity of two foundations, local fire and EMS departments purchased new heart monitors that are able to take diagnostic electrocardiagrams and transmit them to special receiving stations at a local hospital.
Fredericktown EMS Chief Rick Lanuzza explained how the system works in an emergency setting. If a person is having chest pain, 10 electrodes are placed on the chest and limbs of the patient at the scene. The electrodes transmit signals to a portable diagnostic Physiocontrol LIFEPAC 12 heart monitor. If the EKG shows changes indicative of a cardiac problem, the paramedics send the EKG to the hospital, usually before transporting the patient.
“We use a cable and cell phone technology to then send that EKG to the LIFENET receiving station located in the emergency department at Knox Community Hospital,” Lanuzza explained.
In the past, some departments were able to send EKG readings through a land line or fax, but Lanuzza said they were not diagnostic quality like the new equipment.
“Other departments did not have the ability to send an EKG at all,” he added.
Steve Hack, director of Cardiovascular Services at KCH, said that from a hospital perspective, the new system improves treatment and saves critical time.
“We know prior to the patient’s arriving at the hospital that they are having an event or heart attack,” Hack explained. “We can get things rolling quicker. As soon as the patient is coming through the door, we are able to treat them.”
Hack, who works with three interventional cardiologists in the cardiac catheterization lab, said the emergency room staff can prepare medications appropriate for different cardiac emergencies based on what the physician sees on the EKG strip.
The EKG is seen by the ER doctors, who then alert the cardiologist on call. In some cases, the EKG may indicate the cardiologist needs to be called directly to the cath lab.
Interventionalist cardiologist Dr. Barry George is able to receive the EKG image on his cell phone while on call.
“We’ve trained the paramedics also to do a precursory reading of the EKG,” George explained. “If they see the EKG and it shows classic changes of a full-blown heart attack, they can alert right away.
“If I’m on call, then I know very very quickly whether or not this is a full-blown heart attack, and that we need to mobilize the forces to do an emergency angioplasty,” George said.
Both Hack and George stressed the benefit of early treatment.
“Time is muscle,” George said, “meaning that the quicker that you stop a heart attack, the greater chance you have of preventing permanent heart muscle damage.”
Hack said less heart muscle damage not only saves lives, but improves the quality of life for survivors. The longer an artery is blocked, the more permanent damage is done to heart muscle. Once heart muscle is damaged, he said, it is never able to move or pump again.
This affects how much blood the heart is able to pump through the body.
“When it’s impaired, their quality of life comes down, they get short of breath, they’re just not as able to do the things they used to do,” Hack explained. “We’re trying to improve quality of life and save lives.”
Hack said the ultimate goal in a heart attack situation is to be treated as quickly as possible, preferably by having the artery opened no longer than five hours after the onset of symptoms.
He said many patients suffering a heart attack do not seek treatment as soon as they should, which also costs heart muscle.
The cardiac cath lab at KCH began doing angioplasties in May 2007; the new EMS technology went into use a few months later. Now that both have been in operation for over a year, those using the technology said the results have been remarkable.
Before this technology was available, a patient with chest pain would be brought by the squad to the emergency room, where they would have a diagnostic EKG. If a heart attack was diagnosed, a helicopter was called from Columbus. Hack said at least two hours would usually pass from the time the patient arrived at KCH to when they landed in Columbus.
Now that treatment is available in Mount Vernon, that time is cut in half.
“Our goal is to be under 90, but most of ours have been around the 60-minute mark, from the time they present to the emergency room to the time we have that artery opened back up,” Hack said.
EMS personnel had prepared a proposal to seek grant money for the equipment, a process which can take months or years. Instead, the Kokosing/Burgett Foundation and the Landers Foundation each donated half of the $60,616.68 needed to purchase the equipment necessary to bring every department in the county into the system.
George, who said he was intimately involved with the development of heart attack and angioplasty programs in Columbus, said he was unable to establish this system there.
“I worked very hard with a lot of the local paramedics in cities and suburbs to try to get this technology in place, without much success,” he said. “Call it bureaucracy if you may.
“I worked, not very hard, here in Knox County to get this technology here. It took about six weeks to two months to do. So that’s fantastic, and it’s just evidence of what goes on in this county and in this community that is really positive and impacting on the quality of health care in Knox County.”
