Saving lives in record time

During a heart attack timing is everything, and thanks to medical advancements and process improvements at Saints Medical Center, lifesaving cardiovascular care is now performed in record time that far exceeds the national average.

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have established a 90-minute time frame as the standard for treating heart attack victims. Known in medical circles as “door-to-balloon” time, this critical period refers to the interval from patient arrival at the hospital to inflation of the balloon catheter within the patient's blocked artery; the shorter the door-to-balloon time, the greater the chance of survival.

With the people and the technology in place, emergency personnel at Saints Medical Center put its cardiac response team to test when David Higgins, 43, suffered a severe heart attack while preparing to leave his Tewksbury home for work on March 27, 2007.

Local emergency responders arrived in minutes following the call to 911. The first EMT to arrive on the scene administered aspirin and called ahead to Saints Medical Center where its team of specially trained paramedics soon left to meet the local ambulance now halfway to the hospital.

Saints paramedics administered the first diagnostic EKG and called ahead to alert the team of heart specialists now assembled in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, a quick decision that would mean bypassing the emergency room entirely.

It took only 24 minutes from the first EKG until the time the medical staff inserted an angioplasty balloon into the patient’s artery – beating the national average by an impressive 66 minutes. Once the patient was stabilized, the medical team immediately inserted a device known as a stent to keep the artery open and blood flowing.

Before the hospital was approved to reorganize its heart attack response team, cardiac patients would be given anti-clotting medication in the ambulance and taken to another facility for further treatment. Today, area residents can thank Saints Medical Center for its commitment to saving lives in record time.

“The Tewksbury fire, police, ambulance, the paramedics, the staff at Saints -- I owe them my life,” commented a grateful Mr. Higgins shortly after his discharge home. “I was fortunate. It took 24 minutes, and I don’t know if I’d have had 30.”