How to Reduce the Critical “Door to Balloon” Time for Heart Attack Victims

Because most heart attacks occur somewhere other than a hospital setting, emergency medical treatment is a crucial element in saving lives. For this reason, hospitals are always striving to improve their “door to balloon” ratio. According to some EMTs, the total time must be less than 90 minutes in order to ensure the best chance of survival.

Ninety minutes may sound like a lot of time, but not when you consider what this includes: the time for an ambulance to arrive, for emergency lifesaving procedures to be administered, and for the patient transferred into a mobile lifesaving unit and transported to the nearest hospital. Once on board, EMTs must stabilize the patient, hook them up to an EKG machine, and communicate with the hospital prior to their arrival.

Mobile EKG machines now play an important role in reducing the “door to balloon” time. Thanks to bluetooth technology, paramedics can now use a 12-lead EKG machine while the patient is en route to the hospital, and transmit the results directly to the hospital emergency room. This information gives emergency personnel a head start on preparing for the patient’s arrival. In a situation where every minute counts, the importance of mobile EKG units cannot be discounted.

One hospital with a real interest in improving their response time is Loyola University Hospital in Illinois. Their Heart Attack Rapid Response Team ensures that an emergency team is available at Loyola, 24/7. This team includes an intervening cardiologist at all times.

Through their partnership with emergency management services, Loyola hopes to dramatically shorten the time it takes them to respond – from the time the 911 call is placed until the heart attack patient arrives is gets the necessary treatment. In most cases, this requires a balloon catheter to be positioned in the blocked artery, which reopens the flow of blood through the heart. Being able to get a patient to this stage of treatment within three hours is crucial, because after that time the risks associated with the procedure may be too high. The sooner the clogged artery can be opened, the better the chance of survival.