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Phoebe donates 39 EKGs to EMS

• An Albany hospital takes cardiac care beyond its four walls, an official says, and into eight Southwest Georgia counties.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — “Time is muscle.”

The phrase, medical professionals’ reference to damage from heart attacks, is one that gets right to the point: “Every minute that a patient waits ... that muscle dies,” said Todd Braswell, emergency medical center director at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

In an effort to reduce the time between a patient’s arrival and in-hospital treatment, Phoebe Tuesday announced the donation of 39 electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) machines for the emergency medical services units of eight Southwest Georgia counties. The 12-lead machines measure the heart’s electrical activity as recorded by electrodes placed on the body.

The hospital’s commitment to the technology comes about a year after the project was initiated. The investment of more than $550,000 includes the 39 portable monitors as well as a central data- receiving station at Phoebe’s emergency room, said the hospital’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, Jim Hobson.

“We started looking at shortening that (care) cycle ... in the building, and in that process recognized that a lot (of heart attack patients) come (to Phoebe) in an ambulance,” Hobson said.

The portable electrocardiogram EKGs, which will be on ambulances, allow EMS technicians to move up the cycle of care timetable.

Using cell phone technology, the machines read certain vitals and almost immediately transfer that information to a data receiver at Phoebe. There, an emergency room physician can read the data, make a diagnosis, coordinate with the cath lab and cardiologist, prepare for the patient’s arrival and, if needed, relate back to EMS technicians what course of action to take while en route to the hospital.

These machines are already aboard the EMS vehicles of Mitchell, Colquitt, Tift and Thomas counties (they were not paid for by Phoebe). By acquiring machines for Dougherty, Lee, Worth, Baker, Terrell, Calhoun, Crisp and Randolph counties, Phoebe expands the network of care.

“I can’t overemphasize the important role of EMS in people getting the care they need,” he said. “It’s important to recognize that having the technology throughout the region and making sure that everyone is trained is shortening the time cycle to the cardiologist, shortening the time cycle to the cath lab.”

He added, “As we got into the evaluation, we felt like it was a great investment. The best way to do this is on a regional system.”

While time is of the essence for all patients, it especially becomes a priority for people living in the region’s more rural areas.

In rural Baker County — whose 12-member, two- ambulance station covers 365 square miles — getting to some folks can take 15-20 minutes, said its EMS Director Andy Belinc. The patient then has to be loaded onto the ambulance and travel through Baker and Dougherty counties to reach Phoebe, located on the outskirts of Albany’s downtown region. In some cases, it can be 45 minutes after the initial call before the ambulance and patient arrive in the emergency room.

For Baker, “It’s the time needed to get patients to this facility” that can become an issue, Belinc said.

Because the machines use cell phones’ wireless technology, getting a signal in the rural areas isn’t a guarantee. However, even if a machine aboard a Baker County ambulance doesn’t get a signal until it reaches the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport, “it’s still 10 minutes (to Phoebe). It still saves time.”

Of Tuesday’s news, Belinc said he was “ecstatic.”

“I had priced these machines about a year ago. The price really is what held us back,” he said. “So when they told us about getting these ... it was wonderful news.

“These (machines) are the Cadillacs of monitors,” he said.

It’ll be two or three weeks before the machines are ready for use, Braswell said, as personnel must complete training and EMS departments have to install Web modems for transferring data.

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