Ambulance Monitors Get Heart Attack Patients to the “Cath Lab” with Lightning Speed

EKG Machines are a very important piece of technology, and should be found in any good physician’s office or hospital. Also known as the electrocardiogram machine, EKG machines offer a non-invasive way to diagnose a wide array of heart conditions. EKG Machines can even point out a heart attack when it is happening.

However, while a patient is on his or her way to the hospital in an ambulance, an “ambulance monitor” will go a long way towards saving the lives of heart attack victims. Thanks to the ambulance monitor being installed in most EMT units, patients headed to the hospital will get faster treatment for heart attacks until they arrive at the hospital.

According to the Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY, several paramedics from the Clark County and New Albany EMS departments were trained to operate this device, which can send real-time EKG data to the hospital while the patient it still in the ambulance.

The point of these mobile EKG devices is to save the heart muscle. The more time that can be shaved off of the time it takes for the patient to arrive in the catheterization lab, the more the heart muscle can be spared from damage.

The new equipment is the Lifepak 12 defibrillator/monitor, which has 12 leads that send signals about a patient’s heart condition directly from the ambulance to the hospital. While the ambulance is still in transit, information received by the hospital ER staff can allow them to prepare appropriately to care for the patient as soon as they arrive. It also eliminates the need for doctors to perform an EKG test once the patient arrives.

As a result of new ambulance monitors, ER doctors hope to shave the amount of lifesaving time from the typical 90 minute “door to balloon” standard down to 60 minutes. When treatment time is shortened, the expectation for surviving a heart trauma goes up significantly, and damage is markedly decreased.

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