According to the American Heart Association, from 2005-2010 the average time from hospital admission to the life saving angioplasty procedure for heart attack patients decreased from 96 minutes to 64 minutes. This is great news for the nearly 250,000 people who suffer from ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) heart attacks annually in the United States. Characterized by a complete blockage of blood supply to the heart, a quick response time is even more critical in this type of heart attack. An angioplasty, pictured above, is a procedure in which a doctor opens the blocked artery by passing a thin, balloon-tipped tube called a catheter into the heart vessel, resulting in a restored blood flow to the patient’s heart.
Three of the major initiatives leading to the dramatic improvement in timely care of heart attack patients across the country include:
1. Hospital Compare: This organization was launched in 2005 and is a means for The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to publicly report the percentage of heart attack patients treated within the recommended time.
2. D2B Alliance: The American College of Cardiology launched this program in 2006 to improve door-to-balloon (D2B) times by advocating the adoption of key strategies shown to reduce delays based on a study funded by The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
3. Mission: Lifeline: The goal of this organization launched by the American Heart Association in 2007 is to improve community-wide systems of care for patients with STEMI. They are working to get patients to call 9-1-1 faster, to improve response time and capabilities of the emergency medical service teams, to proved faster triage and transport from hospitals that don’t provide angioplasty to those that do, and to ensure the receiving hospital’s team is in place ready to treat the patient as quickly as possible upon arrival.
For more information on this study, read this article.
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