 The Prairie STAT Heart Program was one of the first in the country
to focus on streamlining emergency care to meet the national goal of
providing angioplasty, a nonsurgical procedure to treat diseased
arteries, within 90 to 120 minutes of a patient's arrival at the
community hospital. This is often referred to as door-to-balloon
time. This ensures that patients in rural communities receive
emergent heart care as fast as or faster than patients in larger
urban areas.The 90-minute national goal is based on spending 30
minutes in an outlying community hospital, 30 minutes in transport
and 30 minutes at a percutaneous coronary intervention receiving
center such as Memorial Medical Center.
The Prairie STAT Heart Program is a cooperative effort between
Memorial Medical Center, Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants,
Carbondale Memorial Hospital and 30 community hospitals in central
and southern Illinois. Twenty-one hospitals in the Springfield area
participate in the program. Since its launch in Springfield in
December 2004 and in Carbondale in August 2007, the program has
served 1,315 patients in central Illinois and 593 patients in
southern Illinois, as of December 2012, who suffered from
ST-elevated acute myocardial infarctions, the worst kind of heart
attack.
At a recent awards ceremony, Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital
received one of only six prestigious awards for "Best Median Door to
Balloon (D2B) time ≤ 90 minutes" with a case study exhibiting a
door-to-balloon time of 64 minutes. ALMH also received "Best Median
Door In and Door Out" time with a time of 15 minutes. In addition to
achieving this best median time, ALMH is the only hospital to
achieve door-in and door-out times under the 30-minute goal 100
percent of the time.
Accepting the award were Katherine Anderson, M.D., medical
director of the emergency department at ALMH, and Tara Morris, R.N.,
emergency department manager.
"We are grateful to Prairie Heart for honoring us with this
prestigious award. Without their expertise and knowledge, we would
not be able to provide such a high level of care to our patient
population," Morris said.
"We are also thankful to our dedicated staff whose commitment to
continual process improvements enables us to achieve outstanding
results. We have also been blessed to have the support and
participation of the Logan County Paramedics Association. It has
been a professionally gratifying experience to participate in a
program that has saved and changed so many lives," said Anderson.
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Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of both men and women in the
United States. The statistics indicate that you or someone you know
will develop heart disease. Regardless of where you live, rapid
treatment is the key to survival. Delay in treating a heart attack
reduces the chance of survival.
"The best way to treat a heart attack is to receive rapid
interventional treatment at an experienced heart facility," Morris
said. "Rural critical-access hospitals like ALMH want the fastest
treatment for their patients. Interventions that were implemented at
ALMH led us to providing our patients with this desired level of
care and earning this honor and prestigious award."
"Our vision at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital is to be a
national leader for excellence in patient care," said Dolan Dalpoas,
ALMH president and chief executive officer. "The honors we have
earned for our performance regarding our emergency treatment of
patients who arrive at our hospital with heart attack symptoms
provides strong assurances of how diligently our physicians, nursing
staff and all other caregivers are working to achieve that vision
and ensure all residents of Logan and eastern Mason County that the
very best medical care is available to them at their community
hospital here in Lincoln."
ALMH is a 25-bed critical-access hospital located at 200 Stahlhut
Drive in Lincoln and affiliated with Memorial Health System. ALMH
employs more than 315 in a variety of roles. For more information
about the hospital, visit
www.almh.org.
[Text from file received from
Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital]
For more information:
Prairie STAT Heart Program
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