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[ Sound of heart beating ]
>> Hi, I'm Dr. Chad Rammohan, Medical Director
of the Chest Pain Center at El Camino Hospital.
What you've just seen is a simulation
of a patient having a heart attack.
While you may have seen footage like this on TV
or in the movies, what you have not seen is the process
that begins behind the scenes when the patient calls 911.
That's because the treatment
of heart attacks has changed dramatically
in the last few years.
Centers like ours have a highly specialized team set
up to assess and treat patients with heart attacks very quickly
to abort the heart attack in ideally less than one hour.
Here's how it happens.
After placing that crucial 911 call, the Fire Department
or the Emergency Medical Technicians will arrive
on the scene within minutes.
Paramedics will take an immediate assessment,
an EKG on the scene to assess
if the patient is having a heart attack.
A recent innovation launched just this year known
as LifeNet will transmit the patient's EKG from the field
to the El Camino Hospital Emergency Room,
which will be immediately read by an emergency physician,
and if a serious heart attack is suspected, the cardiac team
and interventional cardiologist will be paged to come
to the hospital sometimes before the patient,
saving precious time.
While the patient is en route to the emergency room, I,
as the on-call interventional cardiologist,
will view the EKG images from wherever I happen to be -
at the hospital, on the road, at home, or in my office,
I can even use my Smartphone to see them.
Within less than 15 minutes of that initial 911 call,
the patient will have arrived at our hospital
where emergency staff will be waiting at the door ready
to assess and treat the patient.
Within 30 minutes after the 911 call,
the patient will have been transferred to the cath lab
where a room has already been set up and prepared
for the patient's arrival.
In the cardiac cath lab, we'll treat the patient
by performing an emergency angioplasty.
We'll insert a small plastic tube called a catheter
and thread it from the groin
up into the patient's coronary arteries.
This will restore blood flow to the heart muscle
and abort the heart attack.
From start to finish, the time
for treatment is less than one hour.
How is that possible?
The main reason is that our hospital is a Nationally
Credited Chest Pain Center,
which means we exceed all national guidelines
and standards for the treatment of heart attack.
Our program starts with the ambulance,
goes to the emergency room,
involves the cardiac catheterization lab all the way
through cardiac rehabilitation.
And why is time so important?
Because time is tissue.
If you're having a heart attack, the quicker you get treated
and blood flow restored, the more tissue is saved.
This translates to improved patient outcomes,
improved quality of life, and less mortality.
So when it comes to heart attacks, our message is clear -
Don't wait, call 911, get to an accredited chest pain center
like ours, our team will be ready and waiting for you.