Pulsara Blog

How one Arkansas hospital is using healthcare communication technology to dramatically improve time-to-treatment for stroke patients

BOZEMAN, Mont., October 17, 2023 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites health care teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, published new details on Arkansas-based Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock’s record improvements in treatment time for stroke patients. The Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock Case Study showcases the work the facility has put towards improving communication among EMS and hospital stroke teams and highlights the resulting decrease in time-to-treatment for stroke patients.

On September 27th, 2023, the Arkansas Department of Health announced in a press release that the Pulsara platform will be available to all ambulance services, acute care, sub-acute care, long-term acute care, nursing homes, behavioral health hospitals, and other affiliated healthcare facilities in Arkansas through funding by the Arkansas Department of Health, starting October 1st. 

"Arkansas is the first state in the country to make the full functionality of this platform available to all EMS agencies, hospitals, affiliated healthcare facilities, public health, public safety, and emergency management," said Bala Simon, MD, DrPH, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Arkansas Department of Health. “This will help our healthcare providers improve communication to improve patient care and outcomes.”

In 5 months, Baptist Health Medical Center - Little Rock reduced their average door-to-puncture time for stroke patients by 58% 

Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, is an 843-bed medical center and certified Comprehensive Stroke Center. As the largest private not-for-profit hospital in the state of Arkansas, Baptist Health - Little Rock provides comprehensive services using the latest in innovative technology. 

Previously, the stroke team was notified about incoming patients through phone calls and text messages. The operator would use the paging system to activate a code stroke, and then an additional IVR code stroke as needed. Members of the stroke team would receive the page, which contained only the patient’s location, via text or phone call.

Though the system worked on a basic level, Sharon Aureli, RN, BSN, MSN, SCRN, CNOR, RNFA, CNL, and Neuro Program Line Manager at Baptist Health, knew that a more sophisticated communication system could help their teams reduce treatment times. “I always think there’s room for improvement,” she said.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

Colorado Springs Fire Department has significantly improved patient outcomes with Pulsara

When you work in a busy fire department, it seems as if there’s never enough time to learn and implement a new piece of technology. Such was the case for Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD), an agency that currently encompasses 23 stations with over 500 firefighters. Serving the second largest city in Colorado, they run about 80,000 calls per year across a large service area of over 195 square miles. 

Despite having a full plate already, CSFD has long recognized the importance of continuously striving to improve patient outcomes. After hearing about Pulsara, a communication tool that works to bridge gaps between providers, they realized their department could benefit from such technology.

“I think the transition of care and communication between prehospital medical care and a hospital-based system is fraught with peril,” said Matthew Angelidis, M.D., co-chief medical director at CSFD. “As you’re trying to give a report and information about a patient and the care that’s been rendered to a health care provider in a hospital, lots of information can be lost in translation. I think we struggled to have effective, high-quality patient care information communicated between firefighters and paramedics and the hospital-based resources the patients were transitioning to.”

Joey Buttenwieser, a lieutenant at CSFD, agrees communication challenges were a huge area of opportunity for their agency. He notes that consistent communication has now become the norm since the department implemented Pulsara.

“This system helps first responders talk to a handful of our medical directors directly through Pulsara instead of calling the hospital and getting whichever emergency room doctor happens to be rotating through that day,” said Buttenwieser.

What if you could improve patient care—across your city, region, and even state—by streamlining communication and coordination between EMS and hospital teams? Texas hospital and EMS leaders are doing just that, utilizing new workflows built on a scalable telehealth communication and logistics platform. Since reworking their trauma system, they’ve improved efficiency, reduced phone calls to multiple people, streamlined transfers, optimized continuity of care, and created shared awareness and accountability.

In this leadership roundtable with Jennifer Carr, MSN, RN, CPEN, TCRN, Vice President of Trauma Services at CHRISTUS Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi, TX, Randy Endsley, BSN, CFRN, CEN, LP, CMTE, Chief Medical Officer and Flight Nurse with HALO-Flight in Corpus Christi, TX, and Corey Ricketson, Sales VP at Pulsara, discover why they created this new system of care, what day-to-day operations look like, and how they are growing it across their organization and region.

Watch the full webinar and check out part 2 of our blog coverage below! And in case you missed it, catch up on part 1 here.

Arkansas hospital achieves consistent <60 minute average door-to-balloon time for STEMI and 80% decrease in average door-to-CT time for stroke

National Park Medical Center (NPMC) is a 163-bed hospital that has been delivering healthcare to the community of Hot Springs, Arkansas, for nearly 70 years. Offering a full range of inpatient and outpatient services, NPMC, which is part of the Lifepoint Health family of hospitals, is also home to the Heart and Vascular Center of Central Arkansas. The facility was recently recognized for excellence through the receipt of Chest Pain Center Accreditation with PCI through the American College of Cardiology Accreditation Services. 

Previously, when the emergency department received an ambulance call that a patient was experiencing chest pain and possibly a STEMI, an ECG would be sent from the ambulance to the emergency department by fax. But the transmission wasn’t always successful, according to Emergency Room Director Priscilla Couch, RN, MSN. And even when the ECG did make its way to the ED, there were hiccups in communicating the information to vital members of the healthcare team. “Our ER doctor would call the cardiologist and try to explain the patient’s condition without a visual, which takes time,” recalls Couch. “Then, with limited information, the cardiologist would have to decide, well, is that a real STEMI or not?” That deliberation would leave Couch waiting before she put out calls asking cardiac cath lab staff, including an interventional cardiologist, radiology technologists, and a cardiac-care nurse, to assemble. “When a patient is experiencing a STEMI, those are precious minutes that are being wasted,” Couch says.

In an effort to improve patient care, National Park Medical Center chose to adopt Pulsara, a mobile healthcare communication program that unites care teams on a single dedicated channel for each patient.

Weslaco EMS and Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco, Texas have adopted Pulsara to facilitate better communication between paramedics in the field and hospital staff, helping doctors more effectively treat patients after they arrive in the emergency room. Clinicians are using the Pulsara platform to share detailed information about a patient's condition.

After streamlining communication for their stroke teams with Pulsara, Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, WA reduced door-to-needle times for tPA patients by 31%.

Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, Washington, is a 349-bed hospital serving the Puget Sound region since 1953. The hospital treats more than 245,000 outpatients and 18,000 inpatients each year, and is a Joint Commission-certified Advanced Stroke Center. 

As a thrombectomy-capable facility with a large staff of specialists, nurses, and more, Overlake Medical Center sees ~900 acute stroke cases per year. With this volume, providing time-sensitive care is of the utmost importance to producing positive patient outcomes. Overlake knew they needed a streamlined means of communication to help make existing stroke workflows more efficient. 

“With so many people in the system, unnecessary team members were being alerted for a stroke case, which added extraneous noise as they cared for patients,” said Overlake Medical Center’s Stroke Team leaders .

LewisGale Hospital Montgomery in Blacksburg, Virginia, recently achieved a record door-to-balloon time of 14 minutes for one of their STEMI patients—one of their fastest ever. 

LewisGale has been working to create clearer lines of communication between its team members. They implemented Pulsara to successfully create a streamlined process for team communication around potential heart attack patients. 

Dr. John Patterson, a cardiologist at LewisGale, described how Pulsara allows him to receive notifications and information about a new patient instantly: "With this platform, I have the ability to see the EKG and activate the cath lab. All of this happens immediately so that it shortens the length of time it takes from the time the patient starts having their heart attack to the time they arrive at our hospital, to the time that we fix it. All of these times get shortened significantly with a platform like this." 

How one Arkansas hospital is using healthcare communication technology to dramatically speed up time-to-treatment for STEMI patients

BOZEMAN, Mont., April 4, 2022 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, published new details on Arkansas-based Ouachita County Medical Center’s record improvements in patient care. The Ouachita County Medical Center Case Study reveals the challenges many hospitals face when trying to transfer patients quickly, and the solution they found that enabled faster transfers and streamlined communication across organizations, ensuring secure and efficient patient care.

As a small medical center in rural southern Arkansas, Ouachita County Medical Center (OCMC) faced a lengthy and inefficient process when transferring STEMI patients to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) facilities that could provide critical care. Jennifer Ray, RN, OCMC’s ER and ICU manager, explained that in 2017, the average door-in, door-out (DIDO) time was 72 minutes for the 19 STEMI patients who came into the OCMC ER—more than double what the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association recommends.

How one rural Arkansas county is using integrated telehealth, communication, and logistics technology to treat patients faster

Bozeman, Mont., Jan. 12, 2022 —  Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, published new details on Arkansas-based Saline Memorial Hospital’s record improvements in patient care. The Saline Memorial Hospital Case Study reveals the unique challenges care teams were facing with a rapidly growing and dispersed population, and the solutions they found to markedly reduce treatment times, establish secure and reliable ECG transmissions, and improve real-time care team communication. 

Understanding Why Your Customer Operates the Way They Do, and How Your Product Can Help

Customer success is an art form. There is so much that goes into it: knowing workflow nuances, being aware of political subtleties, personality differences, current best practices, geographical needs, network systems of care, tech partners and competition, health status, data, etc., etc.

How do we do all this? 

Customer success is definitely an art, but there are some sound practices you can use to help set your customers up for a positive experience. Here are 5 keys to customer success in healthcare technology. 

It has been a challenging year in healthcare. The second year of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought burnout, staffing shortages, and the continued struggles associated with trying to care for patients during a pandemic. 

In the midst of it all, many healthcare systems have risen to the challenge and devoted themselves to providing better, faster, and more efficient care for their patients. They've achieved amazing things in 2021, and, in spite of the setbacks and challenges, have found ways to continue to deliver top-notch care for their patients.

Join us as we take a walk through Pulsara's 2021 case studies, celebrate the stories of some of our partner organizations, and highlight the amazing results they've achieved this year!

Ouachita County Medical Center (OCMC) is a not-for-profit hospital with 99 beds, serving residents of the rural community surrounding the city of Camden in southern Arkansas, about 100 miles from Little Rock. As a smaller, non-PCI facility, OCMC often coordinates transfers for their STEMI patients to PCI facilities.

Previously, when a patient arrived in the OCMC emergency room with a STEMI, whether by ambulance or private car, staff would first page a cardiologist at the patient’s preferred receiving facility, then wait for the physician to call back. Only then could they start the process of transferring the patient to a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) facility that could provide critical care. “Then we had to get a bed confirmed, and then we had to wait to get our EMS service to take the patient. And then, usually, most of those patients at that time went to Little Rock, which is about an hour and a half from where we are,” explained Jennifer Ray, RN, OCMC’s ER and ICU manager. “So the timeliness of the patient getting in and out was very, very slow.” How slow? During 2017, the average door-in, door-out (DIDO) time was 72 minutes for the 19 STEMI patients who came into the OCMC ER—more than double the 30 minutes or less recommended by the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association.

One healthcare system used Pulsara to achieve record door-to-puncture times and improved inter-organizational team communication for better care coordination. 

BOZEMAN, Mont., Nov. 22, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events published new details on Seattle-based EvergreenHealth’s record improvements in patient care. Reporting on their hospital and stroke program growth—and the increased communication challenges that growth brought on—the EvergreenHealth Case Study reveals the solutions they found to streamline care and communication across the whole organization spanning three sites. 

Serving a population of nearly 850,000 residents, EvergreenHealth is a growing two-hospital healthcare system with two emergency departments—one in Kirkland, Washington, and a freestanding emergency department in Redmond, Washington. Historically, the stroke teams were using pagers and audio calls to coordinate care. However, as both the hospitals and the stroke program grew, they began straining the limits of what former standard technologies could support. 

EDITOR’S UPDATE: The ET3 program is mentioned throughout the below interview. Please note that, as reported by JEMS.com on 6/28/23, the federal government is ending the ET3 program. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “This decision does not affect Model Participants’ participation in the Model through December 31, 2023.” Read the full article on JEMS for more details: ET3 Program Comes to an Abrupt End. Be advised that Mobile Integrated Healthcare and Community Paramedicine are separate initiatives and are unaffected by the ET3 program termination.

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What if you could keep hundreds of low-acuity patients a week from having to needlessly go to the emergency room? With a scalable system of care, Austin-Travis County EMS is doing just that. In just three weeks, they kept 434 low-acuity patients out of the hospital—rerouting them to faster and more appropriate care via their ET3 clinic partner agency and the telehealth communications and logistics platform Pulsara.

Recently, Commander Steve White and Dr. Carlos Navarro presented a webinar to share their experience with creating the C4 unit, walk through a case study, and offer tangible takeaways and cutting-edge insights. If you haven't yet had the chance to catch up on the conversation, check out part 1 and part 2.

Read on to hear from Commander White and Dr. Navarro as they host a Q&A, answering audience questions about their system, how it works, and how its principles can be applied to other organizations. 

What if you could keep hundreds of low-acuity patients a week from having to needlessly go to the emergency room? And what if, by doing so, you could reduce or eliminate the challenge of slow turnaround times, free up much-needed EMS and hospital resources, and help patients get the care they need faster, more affordably, and more efficiently?

Austin-Travis County EMS is doing just that. With a scalable system of care, they kept 434 low-acuity patients out of the hospital in just three weeks—rerouting them to faster and more appropriate care via the interconnected support of their ET3 clinic partner agency and the telehealth communications and logistics platform Pulsara.

On October 19th, Commander Steve White and Dr. Carlos Navarro shared their experience with creating the C4 unit, walked through a case study, and shared tangible takeaways and cutting-edge insights that you can apply to your own organization today.

Check out part 2 of their presentation below! (If you haven't yet had the chance to read part 1, check it out here.) 

Editor's Update: The ET3 program is mentioned throughout the below interview. Please note that, as reported by JEMS.com on 6/28/23, the federal government is ending the ET3 program. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “This decision does not affect Model Participants’ participation in the Model through December 31, 2023.” Read the full article on JEMS for more details: ET3 Program Comes to an Abrupt End. Be advised that Mobile Integrated Healthcare and Community Paramedicine are separate initiatives and are unaffected by the ET3 program termination.

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What if you could keep hundreds of low-acuity patients a week from having to needlessly go to the emergency room? And what if, by doing so, you could reduce or eliminate the challenge of slow turnaround times, free up much-needed EMS and hospital resources, and help patients get the care they need faster, more affordably, and more efficiently?

Austin-Travis County EMS is doing just that. With a scalable system of care, they kept 434 low-acuity patients out of the hospital in just three weeks—rerouting them to faster and more appropriate care via the interconnected support of their ET3 clinic partner agency and the telehealth communications and logistics platform Pulsara.

On October 19th, Commander Steve White and Dr. Carlos Navarro shared their experience with creating the C4 unit, walked through a case study, and shared tangible takeaways and cutting-edge insights that you can apply to your own organization today.

Check out part 1 of their presentation below!