Hannah Ostrem

When someone suffers a stroke or heart attack, getting the patient to definitive treatment quickly is crucial to their survival and quality of life post-event. But, getting treatment quickly requires communication between EMS, several care teams within the hospital, and sometimes even teams from other hospitals when transfer is required. 

Too often, this communication breaks down at one or many points along the way due to the outdated and non-integrated technology systems those clinicians rely on to relay their information. This antiquated technology, including phone trees, fax machines, pages, sticky notes ... (yes, really), causes critical patient information to be missed, which can contribute to treatment delays and medical errors.

To ameliorate these frustrations, researchers in Australia have conducted a preliminary study with the following aims:

"To describe:

1) If a technology-based communication solution could be implemented across multiple organizations;

and

2) Which factors are associated with clinicians’ intentions to use the technology."

To determine if Pulsara can improve management timelines for patients suspected of having a stroke or cardiac event, researchers  in Australia have conducted a pilot study with a 6 month pre-post historical control design. 

The researchers give the following background to the study:

• "Rapid treatment of patients with suspected acute stroke or cardiac events involves pre-hospital (paramedics) and hospital clinicians from multiple departments including: emergency, medical, neurology or cardiology, radiology or catheterisation."
• "Clinicians repeat patient details using multiple communication methods (phone, fax, pager, face-to-face) and record details in various systems."
• "Inefficient communication may contribute to treatment delays for these time-critical conditions."

To see if Pulsara could help stop the inefficient communication the teams were experiencing -- and thereby reduce associated treatment delays -- the researchers had prehospital clinicians as well as hospital users activate Pulsara for suspected stroke and STEMI cases.

For years now, Pulsara has been building and rebuilding, making advances, and then making them better. All in efforts to put an end to the miscommunication crisis in healthcare. 

We have a platform that WORKS. A platform that provides real-time TEAM communication which crosses ALL healthcare entities -- after all, if you're only solving the problem on the prehospital side, or the in-hospital side, or the hospital-to-hospital end, you're only solving ONE PART of the problem ... which really isn't solving the problem at all. 

All of the work we've done encompassing the problem and refining the solution have paid off. Patients in 18 states and Australia now benefit from their care teams providing faster, better care due to the instantaneous, streamlined communication systems they've adopted, which includes Pulsara. Below, check out our research, case studies, posters, press releases, and videos to learn what YOUR region can do to stop the miscommunication crisis.

The Re-Engineered Discharge (RED) program is a recently-developed strategy to reduce readmissions in hospital settings. According to a paper published about the project in BMC Health Services Research, "Project RED is comprised of twelve components focused on key aspects of the discharge process, including patient education, medication reconciliation, communication with and among health professionals, and follow-up care."

This initiative has been adapted by systems across the country, though little is known about the program's sustainability and impact. The recent study aimed to identify the factors that influence adaptation and implementation of RED and the impact of those factors on the program's sustainability.

Many clinicians today find themselves splitting their time between clinical practice and resident education, which can make scheduling appointments with patients challenging. To mitigate some of the difficulty, some are turning to telemedicine to do everything from initial consults to sending results and answering patient questions. 

In fact, some health care systems are already offering e-visits where a patient can have the entire appointment with a provider electronically and in real time, so they never have to set foot in a physical doctor's office.  

"Always in Service."

That's the theme of the 2017 EMS Week, which comes to a close on Saturday. But before it's over, we wanted to take a moment to recognize the EMS professionals who whole-heartedly serve their communities, putting their jobs above leisure, family, and self. 

The Pulsara team is blessed to have some of the most talented, dedicated, and experienced EMS personnel on our own staff. "Always in Service" describes no one better than this crew who split their time serving in EMS roles while also giving their all to Pulsara and our clients ... all while balancing their own passions. Check out some of the things that make these team members unique -- as well as their SUPER impressive EMS track records -- below. 

Pulsara was featured last week in a news article on Australian news site, The Courier after Ballarat Base Hospital, Pulsara's second international hospital client, began a pilot of the platform. Ballarat will leverage Pulsara to receive real-time information about a patient’s condition from local paramedics to get the entire emergency department, cardiac, neurology and other specialists and departments on the same page.

A new testing method may be able to quickly rule out acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients presenting to the ED with chest pain. Research suggests that combining an ECG with a high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) test below the level of detection can identify those patients at sufficiently low risk for AMI, allowing them to be released to outpatient care sooner.

The findings of the meta-analysis were reported online in Annals of Internal Medicine on April 17, 2017. The study authors point out that a second test should be repeated approximately 3 hours after initial onset of symptoms, since troponin is not always detectable in circulation of patients who arrive quickly after onset of pain.

Why do we do what we do?

At Pulsara, our "WHY" is to empower TEAMS of caregivers to come together and achieve the best possible outcomes for critical patients as quickly as possible, and with reduced miscommunications and errors.

As clinicians, our "WHY" is to make a difference in the lives of all the patients and their families we touch.

For Pulsara staff and clinicians alike, our "WHY" is also to influence change where change is gravely needed. To move the needle and find new, better ways of treating patients.

One team has truly embraced this mission. The health system in Victoria, Australia, including the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, recently revealed an incredible telemedicine success story:

About a week and a half ago, we broke the news that Pulsara had been selected to receive the Healthcare Informatics Interoperability award for 2017, which was accepted by Pulsara CEO Dr. James Woodson last week at the HIMSS conference in Orlando. If you missed that press release, take a moment to check it out! 

Now, we wanted to bring you the interview with James. The following excerpt originally appeared on the Healthcare Informatics website, and the full version can be seen here. 

New study examines how Pulsara, an app used by paramedics, emergency rooms and stroke teams, can reduce the time it takes for a hospital to deliver clot-busting drugs to stroke patients.

Currently in the United States, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, and each of those cases relies on getting treatment as fast as possible in order to assure best chances for recovery. Expediting care for these critical patients requires smooth communication between first responders in the field, the emergency room staff, and the specialty stroke team. Unfortunately, this delicate relay is not always well executed, as care teams are patching together archaic technologies such as pagers, faxes, emails, call lists, and other communication methods that do not integrate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following content originally appeared on EMS1.com as paid content sponsored by Pulsara. Special thanks to our guest blogger, Drew Rinella for EMS1 BrandFocus. Drew is the clinical coordinator for Bonner County EMS in rural North Idaho. He is a paramedic, public servant, and competition shooter. Drew is an advocate for quality in EMS and also blogs his crusade against bad EKGs in product advertising. 

When the concept for EMS was born nearly 50 years ago, it was meant to be an integrated part of a smooth system of care beginning with the call to EMS dispatch and continuing through to definitive treatment. However, EMS-to-hospital communications have faced significant barriers including miscommunications due to archaic and unreliable technologies, issues transmitting ECGs and other patient data, inadequate training in STEMI recognition, and lack of access to patient outcome information for EMS. According to an article published in JEMS this week, recent studies have shown that prehospital notification by EMS improves time to treatment for stroke, however these notifications are not part of a consistent and standardized protocol, and in 25% of cases, EMS fails to alert the hospital of an incoming stroke patient.

Happy Thanksgiving! A resounding theme this year at Pulsara has been the importance of TEAMS. We've seen, more than ever, how much we can accomplish by being a team made up of teams. The value of establishing regional systems of care has been underscored by the success of clinical teams who are united toward a common purpose. When our clients work as teams (rather than just as unimpassioned groups), they are able to achieve incredible results for their patients beyond even our loftiest goals.

 
A young Pulsara team (circa 2014) poses on the lawn outside our first office.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Huge thanks to Shane Elmore, Blogger of the Year, for the topic of this blog post and for submitting the three top ways to invest in people. The rest of the post practically wrote itself!

--

"What is our company's greatest asset?" 

When Pulsara's Founder and CEO, Dr. James Woodson asked this question at an all-hands meeting recently, my mind jumped to the obvious -- We reduce time-to-treatment by 10-40%! Clearly, our biggest asset is our platform that helps care teams do their jobs more efficiently and improves treatment time outcomes for critical patients!