The University of Mississippi Medical Center Improves Patient Outcomes with Smartphone App for Stroke and Cardiac Care [Press Release]

The Jackson, MS hospital has implemented a new technology to coordinate the teams caring for heart attack and stroke victims, leading to faster, more effective treatment.

When it comes to conditions like heart attack or stroke, getting treatment quickly is key to ensuring a full recovery. Providing the fastest, most appropriate care, however, requires choreography among a diverse set of healthcare providers—EMS, emergency department staff, specialists and more.

At The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), however, those teams no longer lose precious time to archaic paging systems or phone tag. Instead, they now use a mobile application that allows every member of the team to communicate vital patient information and initiate treatment with the tap of a button on their smartphones. This ensures all care team members are on the same page and can provide patients the treatment they need as safely and quickly as possible.

To use the software, the responder who first recognizes the patient’s symptoms can enter information about the patient in the system and alert the appropriate team. For example, when a medic identifies a stroke or heart attack in the field, they can instantly transmit to the hospital the patient’s name and age, vital signs, ETA to the hospital, and even a secure picture of the ECG or facial droop. Because no information is stored on the user’s personal device, it is fully HIPAA compliant and secure.

Not only has UMMC sped up the notification process, but they also use the app to allow every member of their acute care teams to see the information entered by the EMT, even before they arrive at the hospital. This helps them prepare the appropriate resources so the patient can go directly into treatment when the ambulance does arrive.

The medical providers at UMMC also use Pulsara to establish one clock that everyone can track to ensure the patient receives care quickly, and can see – in real time - where the case is relative to their goals. The app also allows every member of the team to receive updates on the patient’s status so they know the outcome and can use the data to measure and improve performance.

“During an acute emergency, the biggest hurdles to achieving optimal care include communication breakdowns between EMS, the emergency room and specialists. It seems so odd that, in this time when communication is easier than ever for virtually everything else, we are still faced with such struggles in medicine,’” said James Woodson, MD, an emergency room physician and founder of Pulsara, “No child should ever have to lose a grandparent because the cardiologist didn’t get the page or a nurse accidentally dialed the wrong number. That’s why we do what we do.”

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The University of Mississippi Medical Center is located in Jackson, and is the only academic health science center in the state, and with more than 10,000 employees is one of the largest employers in Mississippi. The mission of the Medical Center is to “improve the lives of Mississippians by educating tomorrow's health-care professionals, by conducting health sciences research, and by providing cutting-edge patient care.” Learn more about UMMC at www.umc.edu.

Pulsara is a digital healthcare corporation that focuses on using mobile technology to enhance emergency medical outcomes by improving communication and care coordination through the entire healthcare system. Pulsara’s mobile applications STOP STROKE and STOP STEMI improve communications between the teams caring for stroke and heart attack patients, leading to faster treatment and better outcomes. Every clinician – from paramedics to emergency department staff to neurology and cardiology teams – is on the same page with a simple tap. For more information, visit www.pulsara.com.