A team of healthcare providers at New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System have developed a digital application to reduce the time to begin critical care for patients with heart attack symptoms.
The app, called STEMIcathAID, is meant to be used when patients with a suspected ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI, arrive in the emergency room. It was launched July 20 at Mount Sinai Queens (N.Y.), a community hospital that does not have a cardiac catheterization lab. As a result, the hospital typically transfers about 150 STEMI patients a year to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
The app allows physicians at the community hospital to hit a "raise alarm" alert, perform an electrocardiogram and upload the results along with other patient information. The app then sends an instant notification to an on-call cardiologist from Mount Sinai Hospital and to its transfer center, allowing the physician to determine whether the patient needs a cath lab procedure.
If a transfer is necessary, the on-call cardiac cath team is immediately notified and can begin communicating digitally with the care team in Queens. This allows the cardiac cath team to prepare for the emergency procedure and track the incoming patient's distance in the ambulance.
"The single platform that communicates with all necessary departments allows the emergency department to reduce the number of calls and communication devices that the doctors and nurses typically need to use for these cardiac patients," said Matthew Bai, MD, assistant director of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Queens. "The app has the potential to increase efficiency and reduce the time it takes to get to the cath lab for improved patient care."
Annapoorna Kini, MD, director of the cardiac cath lab at Mount Sinai Hospital, collaborated with an app developer to design the app. Dr. Kini is now working with a team of interventional cardiologists, ED physicians and nurses to introduce the platform across Mount Sinai's entire system.
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