Silicon Valley hospital deploys wireless ECG

July 27, 2010

08:24 am

Medtronic Lifenet System ECG El Camino Hospital, also known as "the hospital of Silicon Valley," had deployed Medtronic's Lifenet System to wirelessly transmit a patient's electrocardiogram (ECG) information from the ambulance back to the hospital's emergency department. This enables doctors to assess the patient's status in real-time, according to a report in Healthcare IT News.

The 542-bed acute care center can also retransmit the information to a cardiologist's email or smartphone to enable quicker interpretation. For example, if the patient has had a "ST elevation myocardial infarction" (STEMI) heart attack, the hospital can prepare its catheterization lab before the patient arrives, which results in a reduction in door-to-balloon time of several minutes, according to Healthcare IT News. The American Heart Association recommends door-to-balloon times of less than 90 minutes.

"Lifenet can let us know as quickly as possible when a patient needs blood flow restored to the heart muscle," said Chad Rammohan, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of El Camino Hospital's Chest Pain Center. "When it comes to heart attacks, the time it takes to restore blood flow is directly related to how patients do."