From the report “Building a Healthy Canada” as delivered to the Government of Canada by the Canadian Heart Health Strategy and Action Plan Steering Committee:
All parts of the network work together to ensure that people are assessed, referred and transported quickly to the best site for their care. They develop processes and procedures that ensure timely care.
For example, the Libin Cardiovascular Institute and the Calgary Health Region have a program to ensure rapid access to re-perfusion therapy for patients suffering a heart attack. Emergency service providers record an electrocardiogram on all patients with acute chest pain that is suspected to be heart-related and transmit it electronically to the on-call interventional cardiologist. Patients with an acutely blocked artery are then directed to the appropriate hospital, where they bypass admitting and emergency and go directly to the catheterization laboratory for immediate angioplasty and stenting as needed. According to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, for the past four years Calgary has had the lowest mortality rate for heart attack victims in Canada.
Read related archive article about Dr. Mouheiddin Traboulsi and the inception of the STEMI program highlighted in the national strategy paper – Click Here
Read the CMAJ study reporting results of Calgary’s STEMI implementation - Click Here
