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| Good Shepherd Medical Center |
| Adventist works to treat heart attack patients swiftly |
| Date : - 06/08/2008 |
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Last Memorial Day, Diana Graham had a normal
morning, right up until she started having a heart
attack. The 65-year-old Outer Northeast Portland
resident had visited her mother in a nursing
home, stopped at the grocery store, had brunch
with friends, gone home and then took a nap.
“I was feeling good,” she said, until she woke up with
terrible vomiting and diarrhea.
At first, she thought she had food poisoning, but when
the cold sweats and clamminess started, Graham
suspected a heart attack.
She phoned her daughter, who arrived in minutes and
called 9-1-1.
“I told her, ‘Tell them you think your mother’s having a
heart attack,’ ” Graham said. “And the firefighters were
here in a New York second.”
Graham was lucky. After having a stent, a wire mesh
tube, implanted into her fully blocked artery, she suffered little damage to her heart muscle, though she
will need to take medications for the rest of her life.
What helped save Graham was the fast response by the medical team that saved her life.
When the ambulance arrived, because her daughter had said “heart attack,” paramedics wasted no
time – an EKG verified her suspicion.
Less than an hour after her daughter’s emergency call, Graham was at Portland’s Adventist Medical
Center, 10123 S.E. Market St., where a team of technicians, nurses and doctors were expecting her.
“They were waiting for me at the emergency room door,” she said. “Within minutes they knew where
the blockage was. I can still hear the doctor saying, ‘Hurry up and get that done. We’re ready and
waiting.’ ”
Door-to-balloon time (D2B) is what Adventist Medical Center cardiologist Dr. Brad Titus refers to as
the time it takes the hospital to treat a patient having a heart attack. The shorter it takes to get the
patient from the emergency room and to the cardiac catheterization lab, the better the prognosis.
Angioplasty involves inserting a balloon to open the artery and then one or more implanted stents to
restore blood flow to the heart.
“The blocking is why they’re having a heart attack,” Titus said. “So the time it takes to treat cardiac
emergencies truly does impact their long term mortality.”
Each year, nearly 100 patients arrive at Adventist Medical Center in the throes of myocardial
infarctions.
And, each year, the medical team there – the nurses, doctors, technicians and surgeons – brainstorm
ways to shorten the treatment time. Guided by American College of Cardiology recommendations,
Adventist’s goal is to get the patient diagnosed, medicated, prepped and treated, all within 90 minutes.
This year, 91 percent of Adventist’s medical team response to heart attack cases fell within the 90-
minute D2B time, up from 60 percent three years ago.
“We’re saving just about all of them,” Titus said.
According to Graham, after her arrival at the emergency room, it took the hospital’s medical team only
half an hour to get her into the cardiac catheterization lab, where she had a stent inserted to open her blocked artery.
“It was fast,” she said. “I am so pleased with Portland Adventist.”
Until that day, diarrhea and vomiting weren’t what Graham normally thought were heart attack
symptoms. But when her symptoms occurred, she followed her gut feelings and got help quickly.
“It’s totally different for a woman. I never got pain, until after I was in the ambulance,” Graham said.
“Then I got the classic symptoms – chest pain, pain up and down my esophagus and my jaw started
hurting.”
At 5-foot-3-inches tall and weighing 130 pounds, Graham didn’t feel like a candidate for a heart attack.
She had regular checkups, had normal blood pressure and low cholesterol, exercised daily and had no
family history of heart disease. But she was a heavy smoker.
Fortunately, because she sensed she was having a heart attack, Graham didn’t waste any time getting
help.
“What we want people to do is to call the first hour when symptoms have begun,” Titus said. “Granted,
they may not be having a heart attack, but it’s better to be evaluated.”
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| Reference : - www.adventisthealthnw.com |
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