Pulsara Blog

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 .

Custom patient IDs and wristband scanning will enable seamless response across organizations during stress events.

Bozeman, Mont., April 27, 2022 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, announced today that they are releasing new functionality for mass casualty (MCIs) and multiple patient incidents (MPIs) that will help quickly scale emergency response. 

The product’s new incident management capabilities will allow first responders and EMS providers to quickly create or join an existing patient channel by scanning custom armbands — such as public safety-issued bands or traditional triage tags used during a crisis, add patient condition (red, yellow, green, and black) within the app, and give incident command the ability to monitor the number, status, and severity of patients through a patient dashboard.

When responding to MCIs/MPIs, first responders and medics often use wristbands and/or triage tags to triage patients and visibly denote their condition. Pulsara’s new MCI functionality will allow first responders to scan these wristbands/triage tags and instantly start a new patient channel in Pulsara. Responders — from any organization — who subsequently treat the patient will be able to simply scan the wristband and will instantly be added to the patient’s channel. They will then be able to see all information that has previously been added to the case, including any known demographic information, vitals, any treatments provided, and all communications around the patient. Medics will also be able to add, track, and modify the patient’s triage status in Pulsara, with the appropriate green, yellow, red, and black statuses that match traditional triage tags. 

The newly expanded platform allows healthcare teams to support toxicology and overdose patients via telehealth and improved communication. 

Bozeman, Mont., April 20, 2022 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, recently released a dedicated toxicology and overdose patient type that easily connects everyone required for each patient case—from EMS and hospital teams to the poison center and even behavioral health. 

With this new dedicated functionality, everyone along the patient care continuum can collaborate securely and instantly, avoiding multiple reports and phone calls. Teams can leverage instant messages, live group video and audio calling, images, audio clips, flowchart notes, and template-driven recommendations, all without a single landline phone call. Pulsara puts consultants, toxicologists, and poison centers on the frontlines through the platform’s instant visual communications to identify a venomous snake or mystery pills, assess a strange rash, or even interpret an ECG.

Pulsara even enables first responders to treat in place when appropriate, equipping EMS with direct communication with hospital clinicians, toxicology or overdose specialists, or even behavioral health experts. Such unified communication helps facilitate unnecessary ED visits and saves time and resources for the care system while providing a better experience for the patient. 

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.

The newly expanded platform allows first responders and healthcare providers to support behavioral health patients via telehealth and streamlined transfers. 

Bozeman, Mont., March 22, 2022 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, recently released a dedicated behavioral health patient type allowing EMS crews, hospital teams, and other healthcare organizations to better support behavioral health patients. EMS or other first responders can now directly connect with behavioral health facilities, teams, or individuals through live group video and audio calling to receive help in determining the most appropriate treatment for the patient. For teams working with patients who need enhanced behavioral health services, this new patient type helps streamline placement to a more appropriate facility. Utilizing this new functionality on the Pulsara platform, clinicians can quickly facilitate appropriate real-time treatment for patients, help relieve overcrowded healthcare facilities, and save time, money, and resources by avoiding unnecessary and extended ED visits.

New functionality allows hospitals to notify EMS of ED availability, improving efficiency, collaboration, and patient care

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. 

Baptist Health in Little Rock, Arkansas, is using new technology to reduce treatment times and deliver better patient care. Dr. Wendell Pahls, Medical Director of Emergency and Transfer Services at Baptist Health, spoke to The Vine about how Pulsara is helping them streamline communication and cut down treatment times. 

"It's really cool," said Dr. Pahls. "We've taken a very fundamental concept, which is that the sooner that we can treat you for time-sensitive illnesses—like strokes, heart attacks, and things like that—the sooner we can get you into definitive care, the better off you'll be. Everybody these days carries around one of these: a cell phone," he said. With Pulsara's communication and logistics platform, Baptist Health has been able to link all their different providers together on one patient channel, facilitating better communication around each patient—and, as a result, better, faster patient care. 

Check out the video interview here! 

Telehealth Communications and Logistics Platform Honored for Improving Healthcare Delivery

BOZEMAN, Mont., Nov. 8, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events announced today that the company has received a 2021 Telehealth Award from prominent healthcare technology news source HealthTechZone.com. The award recognizes companies innovating and improving health delivery and management towards exceptional customer experiences.

“On behalf of TMC and HealthTechZone, I would like to congratulate all of the Telehealth award winners,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “Every year I am so impressed by each winning company’s dedication to quality in solutions that benefit the overall customer experience—while driving ROI for companies that use them.”

As a tertiary care center and Level I trauma facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the trauma team at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central had their patient care process dialed in. However, there was one part of their process they weren’t satisfied with: their communication system.

The team was receiving notifications through an alarm dispatch system, which ran through the hospital operators and was then manually managed by each individual service line. UCHealth’s Associate Nurse Manager, Nikki Schroeder, BSN, RN, CEN, TCRN, described their process: “Prehospital providers would call in to our ED charge nurse, relay pertinent information, and then the ED charge nurse would determine what level of activation was required. To notify our hospital team, the charge nurse would give the information to our unit clerk, and our unit clerk would page our 811 paging system. That’s how the trauma surgeon, the ICU, and the whole trauma team got notified.”

Pulsara’s powerful new functionality has received special recognition for its innovative and practical contributions to EMS and patient care. 

BOZEMAN, Mont., September 13, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, and JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services) are proud to announce the selection of Pulsara as a 2021 Hot Product at the virtual EMS Today Conference & Exposition. Pulsara’s newest functionality allows EMS teams to practice at an expanded scope with dynamic tools, including group video conferencing, deep linking, the Pulsara Summary Report, and more.

Through Pulsara, EMS can alert their Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) team for a patient who may be sick but not critical. The community paramedic arrives on scene, communicates via live video with their medical director, connects the patient with their primary physician, and creates a healthcare plan. This frees up ambulance crews to remain available for time-sensitive emergencies while less critical patients can receive treatment without transport.

Meet Pulsara for live demos, simulations, and a game-changing ECG integration to improve clinical workflows and communication.

BOZEMAN, Mont., September 6, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, announced today that the company will be attending the Birmingham, UK Emergency Services Show where it will showcase its latest ECG integration with the Philips Tempus Pro advanced patient monitor. This state-of-the-art integration enables ambulance services to share Philips monitor diagnostic quality 12-lead ECGs directly with the A&E before arrival—across the Pulsara communication platform—enabling clinical teams to prepare for the patient’s arrival quickly.  

As the UK’s leading annual showcase of the blue light sector, the Emergency Services Show will feature hundreds of exhibitors, live demos, learning opportunities, and premier networking. According to the show’s website, “The two-day event brings together all disciplines from the emergency services sector to discover innovative technology and operational solutions, share their experiences and unite in their collaborative approach to public safety.” 

Teller County, CO develops a first-of-its-kind telehealth program using Pulsara as the backbone for rural health communications

BOZEMAN, Mont., August 16, 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 Teller County, Colorado’s groundbreaking community paramedicine and telehealth program. Reporting on their initial challenges, the solutions they found, and results, the “911-INITIATED TELEMEDICINE: Next-Level Patient Care for Rural Colorado” case study reveals a new pathway forward for EMS agencies across the globe.

As COVID-19 escalated across the country in early 2020, EMS and hospital leaders in Teller County, CO identified that residents were reluctant to seek care—for any condition—at the hospital. “Up to 40% of our EMS volume does not want to go to the hospital once 911 arrives,” said Dr. Jeremy DeWall, EMS Medical Director for the Teller region. “Looking at our numbers, the fear was that we were missing a large group of people who were without healthcare or afraid to go to healthcare because of COVID-19.” 

Leveraging their already thriving community paramedicine program, Teller County’s Ute Pass Regional Health Service District and Emergency Medical Specialists, PC set in motion a new 911-initiated telemedicine program, utilizing Pulsara’s telehealth capabilities to address the acute needs of the community. 

To further support care teams, Pulsara introduces enhancements to the communication platform’s calling capabilities.

BOZEMAN, Mont., July 28, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that connects healthcare teams across organizations, announced today a recent enhancement to the platform: Pulsara calling featuring group video conferencing. This upgrade, available for all users of the platform at no extra charge, includes the ability to add multiple team members as needed across organizations and adds overall improved usability—including configurable default behavior for camera and speaker and advanced controls for call participants. 

“The group video conferencing addition to Pulsara calling marks an exciting next step in Pulsara’s journey to improve the lives of people in need and those who serve them,” said Erich Hannan, Pulsara’s Chief Technology Officer. “We've heard loud and clear from our customers how important exceptional audio and video experience is to support and enhance patient care. Pulsara calling with group video enables even more powerful and streamlined communication and collaboration across teams and organizations.”

CONNECT with industry leaders on the latest research and best practices in STEMI, stroke, and emergency management in a post-COVID-19 world. 

BOZEMAN, Mont., June 21, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading telehealth and communication platform that connects teams across organizations, announced today the company’s inaugural Pulsara CONNECT Conference. Slated for October 12-13, 2021, this FREE virtual international experience allows attendees to engage with world-class industry experts and thought leaders across the healthcare community. With four tracks—EMS/Community Paramedicine, STEMI/Cardiac, Stroke/Neuro, and DES/Emergency Management—attendees will take away tangible best practices that they can incorporate within their region. Topics include everything from the latest research and best practices surrounding time-sensitive emergencies to creating systems of care that scale in a world attempting to recover from COVID-19 and prepare for what might be next.

How one Mississippi hospital pioneered a cross-departmental triage workflow in their facility by leveraging a mobile-first telehealth communications platform

BOZEMAN, Mont., May 24, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading telehealth and communication platform that connects teams across organizations, announced today that St. Dominic Hospital, located in Jackson, MS, has pioneered an innovative new triage protocol that uses Pulsara’s platform to improve care team communication and patient care. After initially embracing Pulsara for front-end stroke and STEMI care, the hospital recently saw an opportunity to further improve other cross-departmental workflows via the same mobile-first platform.