Awards and Recognition
St. Joseph’s Hospital Exceeds National Standard
for Treating Heart Attack Patients
Emergent Cardiac Intervention recommended within 90 minutes
Parkersburg, WV – When a patient presents to an Emergency Room and requires emergent cardiac intervention, such as balloon angioplasty, to open a blocked vessel during a heart attack, national guidelines recommend opening the blocked vessel in less than 90 minutes. This is to improve blood flow and prevent further heart muscle damage. This measure is referred to in the healthcare arena as “Door to Balloon” or “Door to PCI (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention).” A hospital’s ability to meet the 90 minute Door to PCI standard is measured by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the national agency that reviews hospitals (Joint Commission).
PCI of less than 90 minutes is an American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology standard. “Research shows that performing PCI in less than 90 minutes after a patient’s arrival at the hospital can lead to better outcomes for patients who are having certain types of heart attacks. We monitor this to be sure we provide care to these patients as quickly as possible,” shared Janice Midcap, Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety at St. Joseph’s Hospital. “Not only does St. Joseph’s have the capability to provide angioplasty in emergency situations, but we also have on-site open heart surgery services for those patients who need to be taken urgently from the cath lab for surgical intervention. If we didn’t have this capability under one roof, the patient would have to be stabilized and transferred for an open heart procedure when minutes are precious.”
Hospitals offering angioplasty, such as St. Joseph’s, focus on using protocols to treat heart attack patients and those that would benefit from angioplasty. “One of the first steps in our Emergency Department is to perform an EKG on anyone complaining of chest pain,” shared June Kuhn, clinical manager of the Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s. “The EKG helps to identify if the patient is having an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) or heart attack. For those patients, we initiate our cath team and transport the patient to the cath lab.”
Officials at St. Joseph’s announced today that 100% of the patients meeting the CMS and Joint Commission criteria who presented to the Emergency Department since August 2007 with an EKG showing an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (heart attack) received emergency cardiac intervention within the 90 minute standard.
“Because time is muscle, our goal is to take care of the heart attack patient as safely and efficiently as possible,” stated H.R. Lockhart, clinical coordinator of the cardiac cath lab at St. Joseph’s Hospital. “Once the patient is in the cath lab, our team takes images of the coronary arteries to identify the blockages causing the chest pain.” To open a clogged artery in the heart, an interventional cardiologist threads a slender balloon-tipped catheter into the artery where the blockage is. The balloon is then inflated, compressing the blockage and allowing the artery to widen so that blood can flow more easily. Often the cardiologist will insert an expandable wire mesh stent to keep the artery open after the procedure.
“We focus on many processes to optimize the patient flow from the Emergency Department to the Cath Lab,” Lockhart explained. “Each case is evaluated to identify areas where minutes could be shaved off the process thus providing this service in an expedient manner. Many cases are done well under the 90 minutes and at present the median Door to PCI time at St. Joseph’s Hospital is 59.5 minutes.”
The Cardiac Catheterization Lab at St. Joseph's Hospital is the only cardiac cath lab in Parkersburg to offer cardiac intervention. Since April 2004, St. Joseph’s cath lab has performed over 1,700 interventional cardiac procedures such as primary PCI, balloon angioplasty, stents and other therapeutic procedures to repair blockages.
