When a heart attack is suspected, triage and timing are critical, especially when treating a ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI), or a more severe heart attack. Out of the 735,000 heart attacks throughout the United States each year, about 250,000 of them are STEMI. The heart is not receiving blood, which can be fatal if not addressed quickly. The sooner EMS can start administering life-saving treatment, the better the patient outcome. Every heartbeat and second counts.
The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) needed a way to help treat STEMI cases in a timely manner. As the largest fire department in the United States, FDNY is universally recognized as the busiest in the world with more than 1.4M medical incidents handled annually. They turned to the GD e-Bridge Mobile Telemedicine for their experience and tools for sharing Electrocardiograms (ECG) from anywhere to save lives in the greater New York area, from any monitor or device.
The 12-lead ECG is key in diagnosing STEMI cases. Once in the field, an FDNY paramedic quickly obtains a 12-lead ECG from the patient and transmits the report to a physician at the agency’s Telemetry Center in Woodside Queens. The physician reviews the 12-lead ECG and consults with a medic.
Treatment protocols can be used to initiate advanced life support and provide advance notification to the receiving hospital’s cardiology team. The utilization of this pre-arrival notification is vital for patients experiencing time-sensitive acute care cases like heart attacks. Minutes make all the difference. With the right tools, FDNY paramedic and EMS teams can notify the ED and the cardiac catheterization team. They use this information to make advance preparations, such as preparing the lab, bed assignments, equipment, and personnel, for the patient’s arrival. The workflow is streamlined to reduce time-to-treatment and restore critical blood flow to vital organs.
With GD e-Bridge, FDNY ambulances can now forward 12-lead reports faster than ever before with greater security and effective automation directly from their mobile device. They also can implement additional advanced capabilities, such as connecting EMS or hospital staff to any other team with HIPAA-secure voice, alert notifications, text, photos, vitals, monitor data, tracking, and streamline video.
Fire Departments are becoming a vital player in delivering healthcare, especially now that programs like ET3 are becoming available, with improved bandwidth through FirstNet, they can provide a better program model for EMS. By adding mobile telemedicine to their workflows, it connects Fire-EMS teams to the ED to reduce risk and costs while ensuring the right care, at the right place, and the right time. GD and FDNY are working together to implement the latest solutions to ensure the best quality of patient care available in the city. Telemedicine is the future, and the FDNY has already embraced it.
ABOUT GD
GD enables smarter patient care by empowering hospitals, EMS, community healthcare and public safety with the most comprehensive, interactive, configurable, affordable, and integrated FDA listed medical communication and mobile telemedicine solutions. The benefits of which are enhanced workflows, minimized risk, reduced costs and improved patient outcomes. Learn more at www.general-devices.com