Calif. Hospitals Certified For Heart Attack Patients
Feb. 11--STOCKTON -- Saving lives is what emergency medicine is all about, and Stockton's two acute-care hospitals both took a big leap forward in that direction Friday when they passed site surveys to become preferred destinations for heart attack patients.
A team from the San Joaquin County Emergency Medical Services Agency visited St. Joseph's Medical Center and Dameron Hospital on Friday and determined both facilities met the strict criteria to become designated STEMI receiving centers.
A STEMI -- or ST segment elevation myocardial infarction -- is a common type of heart attack caused by a blocked coronary artery that can be treated through cardiac catheterization or clot-busting drugs to restore blood flow to the heart. The longer it takes for a patient to get treatment, generally the worse the outcome.
"Patients with a certain type of heart attack will be identified in the field by paramedics (using a 12-lead EKG transmitted back to the hospital) and will be transported to either Dameron or St. Joseph's. The patients are able to bypass the emergency room and go directly to the interventional cardiac cath lab, where they can have their blocked arteries opened by an interventional cardiologist," said Dan Burch, the county's emergency medical services administrator.
"It's basically the new state of the art for cardiac care," Burch said.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in San Joaquin County. In 2007, it accounted for almost 28 percent of all deaths reported -- or 1,288 out of 4,627 total deaths -- according to the latest confirmed figures available from county Public Health Services.
By making a concerted effort to reduce the time until a heart attack patient is treated, the two hospitals along with American Medical Response paramedics and county EMS have committed to saving more lives, Burch said.
"Every minute counts when we try to get the patient into the hospital who is having an active heart attack and we need to open up their arteries. This is wonderful news for the whole community to have two hospitals to choose from in case they have acute myocardial infarction," said Dr. Ramin Manshadi, a Stockton-based interventional cardiologist who practices at both hospitals and teaches at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.
While cardiac catheterization has been practiced for some time, Burch said what's new is the ability to identify STEMI patients early on in the field and get them to the appropriate hospital the first time.
None of the five other acute care hospitals in San Joaquin County has expressed an interest in pursuing the STEMI designation, according to Burch. Nationwide, only 25 percent of hospitals are equipped to be STEMI receiving hospitals capable of administering percutaneous coronary intervention, along with having the specialized medical personnel available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the American Heart Association.
With the designation of St. Joseph's and Dameron, no location in the county is more than 30 minutes away by ground ambulance from a STEMI receiving hospital, according to Burch. That includes some areas in the south county around Ripon and Escalon, where patients would be transported to Modesto's two designated STEMI hospitals, Doctors Medical Center and Memorial Medical Center.
"We're in sync with the rest of the state. About half the counties have implemented STEMI systems, and the rest are in process," Burch said.
The STEMI designation is expected to become official in the next month when Burch presents an agreement between the two hospitals and San Joaquin County for approval by the Board of Supervisors.
Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/goldeenblog.
Copyright 2012 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.
