Franklin County Public Safety hosted a Carilion Clinic Regional Heart Alert Training on Monday, January 28th. Emergency medical service providers, nurses, and 911 dispatchers were among those who attended the class. Carilion Clinic Life-Guard crew and Communication Specialists joined together with Dr. Paul Frantz to educate the group on an exciting new initiative which was created at Carilion Clinic-the Field Heart Alert Program. This rapid response plan allows for EMS agencies to work closely with Carilion Clinic to deliver superior emergency cardiac care to the members of our communities .
There has been an increase in the use of prehospital 12-lead EKGs by our local EMS providers, which aids in early identification of a patients experiencing a specific type of heart attack, known as an ST-elevation M.I. (STEMI). Clinical evidence reveals that early identification of these patients is crucial to their outcomes. Thanks to Carilion Clinic's Field Heart Alert Program, there has been an average time reduction of 23 minutes from the time of initial patient symptoms to their arrival to the cardiac catheterization lab at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. This means that many STEMI patients in our region are receiving life-saving procedures well within the national average of a 90 minute window for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI).
