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Australia EMS and Hospital Teams Save Young Man's Life Through Innovative Communication

Picture of James Woodson, MD James Woodson, MD : Dec 01, 2016

STEMI Australia

Australia EMS and Hospital Teams Save Young Man's Life Through Innovative Communication

We can’t say it enough: Uniting and empowering strong teams is the foundation of building Regional Systems of Care. But how can we do that when we give different members of the same “team” different communication tools and protocols? Does it make any sense to give medics old fashioned radios and modems and then give cardiologists and neurologists phones and pagers? How can we truly expect them to be an integrated team when they aren't even speaking the same technological language?

Luckily, some teams are already taking the lead in revolutionizing the way we communicate around time-sensitive emergencies. One such example comes from the incredible teams in the state of Victoria, Australia, who were recently featured in an article in the Herald Sun.

According to the article, 37-year old heart attack patient Peter Richardson nearly died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. But thanks to the quick actions of the Ambulance Victoria paramedics, and the hospital teams at Bendigo Health, Mr. Richardson has made a full recovery and his 10-month old son will grow up with a father.

The teams of Florey, Bendigo Health, and Ambulance Victoria present on their Pulsara Pilot Project.

In addition to performing CPR each of the three times Mr. Richardson's heart stopped while en route to the hospital, paramedics also used the Pulsara platform to alert the hospital staff of their incoming patient. This allowed the entire hospital team to adequately prepare for his arrival and expedite his life saving care once he arrived.

Ambulance Victoria is trialing Pulsara through a research initiative led by the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program, based at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Also participating in the trial is Bendigo Health, a high-acuity teaching hospital which has been serving patients for more than 150 years.

The hospital and EMS teams in Victoria have worked together to use Pulsara to streamline their communications, ultimately reducing the time in which stroke patients receive treatment by 20%, reducing the time to clot-busting medication for heart attack patients by half, and reduce the time to unblock arteries by two thirds.

According to Lead Clinical Investigator and Florey Neurologist Professor Chris Bladin, “The faster we can initiate treatments, the better the outcome is going to be." And getting faster treatment relies on instant, efficient communication between and among teams who are united toward a common goal of better outcomes for their patients.