Intermountain Healthcare, IASIS Healthcare, MountainStar Healthcare, and University of Utah Health Care - Blue Tooth to First Responders

Overview

The four health care systems operating Salt Lake County’s community hospitals banded together – with the support of the Utah Hospital Association (UHA) – to provide funding to several area fire departments for the purchase of Blue Tooth technology, which allows first responders to transmit real-time EKG data directly from the ambulance to the hospital, enabling faster diagnosis of heart attacks.

With Blue Tooth technology in the ambulances, detailed heart data gathered by the EKG leads are transmitted to the hospital, where an emergency department (ED) physician reads the data. If a heart attack is confirmed, the physician activates the hospital’s catheterization team. Since there is no need to conduct additional testing in the ED, the patient is more quickly taken to the cath lab, where a lifesaving balloon is inflated in the patient’s blocked artery, which reestablishes blood flow and reduces damage to cardiac muscle.

About half of the one million Americans who have heart attacks each year die as a result of the attack. A 2007 national study found that patients who received proper treatment for an ST elevation myocardial infarction within 90 minutes of hospital arrival had only a 3 percent in-hospital mortality rate. This rate increases to 4.2 percent when treatment comes within 91 to 120 minutes and climbs to 5.7 percent when the delay is between 121 and 150 minutes. For longer delays, the mortality rate increases to 7.4 percent.

Impact

When the program began in March 2010, not all EMS agencies in the Salt Lake area had the ability to transmit EKG data in real time, as a result of limited budgets and the economic downturn. The nine fire departments in Salt Lake County now have this technology operational, which is estimated to save 25 to 30 lives annually. Since 2010, the effort has been expanded throughout the state to include 21 other EMS agencies of various sizes that have been willing to be trained and use the technology.

Challenges/success factors

This effort has been part of an ongoing initiative by UHA, the Utah Department of Health, and the Utah Chapter of the American Heart Association to improve cardiac care throughout the state. Hospital cardiac specialists collaborated with local fire departments and EMS agencies throughout Utah to establish the criteria now utilized to determine the need to run an EKG in ambulances when a heart attack is suspected.

Future direction/sustainability

The effort has now been rolled out to all EMS agencies throughout the state that have the ability to use this technology when transporting. The statewide effort was funded through the generous contribution of more than $580,000 of four major systems based in the Salt Lake county area – MountainStar Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, IASIS Healthcare, and University of Utah Health Care – for the purchase of the 12-lead blue tooth equipment.

Advice to others

• Work collaboratively with all hospitals and health systems in your community to establish universal agreement that this technology is needed throughout the area, and that it is appropriate for the hospitals to provide the funding.

• Develop relationships with local fire departments and EMS agencies that already have this technology in place. These resources help with the selection of equipment and budgeting concerns. 

Contact: Jill Vicory
Director, Member and Community Affairs
Utah Hospital Association
Telephone: 801-486-9915, ext. 140
E-mail: jill@utahhospitals.org