In a heart attack, “time is muscle.” To improve outcomes from a heart attack, patients need to recognize heart attack symptoms and immediately call 9-1-1 for emergency assistance. From that starting point, a critical chain of events must move quickly and appropriately so that the blocked artery to the heart can be treated and blood flow restored to the heart muscle.
Dr. Edward Mostel, M.D., a Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center cardiologist, has formed a coalition of healthcare professionals whose goal is to reduce the window of time from the 911 call to appropriate intervention for the treatment of heart attacks. The coalition includes Dr. Mostel’s non-profit foundation, Irving Mostel Heart Attack Rapid Response Track (I.M. HAART), the Foundation for the Advancement of Cardiac Therapies (FACT), northern Palm Beach County fire/rescue squads, and Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center (PBGMC). I.M. HAART is named in honor of Irving Mostel who died twenty-six years ago from a heart attack. He was Dr. Mostel’s uncle.
Dr. Edward Mostel with LifeNet machine in the PBGMC ER department.
I.M. HAART, through a grant from FACT, has obtained and is distributing modems to the fire/rescue squads in northern Palm Beach County who are first responders to 911 calls. Cellular data transmission lines have been assigned to all of the modems, enabling fire/rescue to transmit from the field, the results of tests that measure the electrical activity of the heart (known as electrocardiograms or ECGs). This data is transmitted via the Internet to a receiving computer system in the emergency department at PBGMC. If the ECG demonstrates a heart attack, the emergency department physician immediately activates the hospital’s cardiac catheterization team who are on alert 24-hour a day, seven days a week.
“Heart attack damage and deaths from heart attack can be lessened by quick action,” said Dr. Mostel. “The shorter the duration from heart attack diagnosis to successful emergency angioplasty (widening of a blocked artery), the less damage that person will suffer. Earlier recognition and rapid treatment can prolong life for the heart attack victim, and that is what we are accomplishing through this partnership.”
Prior to this advancement, the patient would have to be transported to the hospital and evaluated by the emergency room physician before the cardiac catheterization team would be activated. The coordinated actions of the fire/rescue team and the cardiac catheterization team at PBGMC can save vital minutes. Expected time saved by the patient’s ECG being transmitted by fire/rescue to the emergency department ranges from five to thirty minutes.
“I am hopeful that when we demonstrate the value of this upgraded communication system in our community; it will be adopted throughout Florida and eventually the entire nation,” says Dr. Mostel.