WRMC Announces Results of Heart-Attack Studies

It’s getting safer to have a heart attack in Northwest Arkansas.

Every heart attack patient risks developing complications, including a second attack, arrhythmia and stroke. As the heart muscle starves for oxygen, the risk for further problems increases.

Paramedics aren’t allowed to diagnose a heart attack, much less administer clot-busting drugs. Until the study began Jan. 1, 1999, victims had to wait until they reached the emergency room before anything could be done.

Drs. Ted Fish, Anne Courtney-Eighmy, James Cooper, Lee Gray and Travis Embry, registered nurse Lydia Fields and biostatistician Sean Mulvenon collaborated to design and test a pre-hospital heart-attack treatment system for Washington Regional Medical Center.

Courtney-Eighmy is the co-principle investigator and director of the research project entitled “PEP,” Pre-hospital Electrocardiogram and IV Thrombolysis in Acute Myocardial Infarction.

She said the study showed that patients who receive pre-hospital treatment are half as likely to develop complications from a heart attack.

Since the medical team began its study, 16 patients have been diagnosed and treated for a heart attack on their way to the ER.

Other hospitals in the United States have tried to organize an effective system of protocol for administering the treatment en route, but none has worked.

WRMC’s plan works, Courtney-Eighmy said, because it uses wireless transmission to send readings from a 12-lead ECG to doctors in the ER. From there, the physicians diagnose a heart attack and prescribe medicine to dissolve the blood clot.

Since the study began, WRMC has funneled about $250,000 into the project and outfitted ambulances with advanced ECG systems and shots of the $2,000-per-dose drugs.

Washington Regional Medical Foundation raised $140,000 to equip the 11 rigs of Madison County Medical Service and Central Emergency Medical Service in 1998.

With the success of the study, Courtney-Eighmy said the next step is broadening the tests. By next summer, 15 more hospitals, including several in Northwest Arkansas, will launch similar programs.

“The question isn’t should we do this,” Courtney-Eighmy said. “The question is, how can you do it within the health care system in the United States. And we figured it out, in Arkansas.”