Pulsara is a communication platform that connects teams across organizations. Want to see how it works? While the demo video below focuses on a STEMI case started by EMS, STEMI is only one of the many conditions your teams can use Pulsara for. Additionally, care teams can start a case on Pulsara in the ED for walk in patients, from anywhere else in the facility for inpatients, and can use the platform to manage interfacility transfers.
2 min read
The Changing Face of STEMI and Stroke Care
By Barry Hickerson, EMT-P on Sep 25, 2019
When I was fresh out of Paramedic school, STEMI and stroke patients were something we couldn’t do much about except monitor and transport. To be honest, we hadn’t even started using the term "STEMI," and we were years away from giving aspirin. Patients who survived to get discharged out of the CCU or ICU (there were no stroke units then) went on to rehab or an extended care facility with a shoebox full of meds. They were armed with lots of Digitalis and Lasix, but not much hope.
Topics: Stroke STEMI Healthcare Regional Systems of Care
2 min read
How to Reduce Door-to-ECG Times
By Shane Elmore, RN on Jul 19, 2019
There used to be a time when prehospital ECGs were lacking in quality compared to those obtained using hospital machinery. Field ECGs simply weren't of diagnostic quality - but today's field monitors have come a long way, and are now of comparable quality to hospital machinery. As such, it no longer makes sense to require medics to repeat their ECG upon hospital arrival.
Topics: STEMI
1 min read
Fire Chief Signs Teams up for Pulsara ... and Then They Use it to Respond to His Own Heart Attack
By Brittney Nelson, BSN, RN, SCRN on Mar 18, 2019
“When I signed us up [for Pulsara], I had no idea I’d be one of the patients to use it.” - El Dorado Fire Chief Mosby.
Topics: STEMI Communication
2 min read
Research Reveals the True Impact EMS Providers Have on STEMI Survivability
By Team Pulsara on Mar 11, 2019
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Courtney Chumley, FACPE, for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
Picture this: You receive a 911 call for chest pain, and on arrival you are quick to identify that your patient is having a STEMI. You quickly load the patient into the medic unit and then notify the receiving facility you are on the way. You find out later that your patient went to the cath lab and is now in recovery doing well. Job well done….or was it?
Topics: STEMI EMS Communication
2 min read
Australian Health System Achieves Faster Treatment for Every Stage of Patient Journey With Pulsara [Preliminary Research]
By Hannah Ostrem on Dec 07, 2018
Topics: Stroke STEMI EMS Australia
2 min read
Creating a Culture of Resuscitation Excellence [Checklist]
By Team Pulsara on Nov 13, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Jeff Jensen for writing today's blog post. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Last February, the American Heart Association committed to saving 50,000 additional lives from in-hospital sudden cardiac arrest by 2025. In July, they announced RQI 2020 that offers a comprehensive end-to-end quality improvement program designed to deliver higher quality of CPR to health care systems. The market debut will be January of 2019 through its newly formed joint venture with Laerdal, RQI Partners, LLC.
So what is RQI?
Resuscitation Quality Improvement, or RQI, is intended to improve Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) skills, while also making training more convenient for healthcare providers. Students can take the cognitive components of testing online and then test their psychomotor skills with real-time feedback by performing CPR at mobile Simulation Stations (such as SIM-MT, the state-wide simulation project based in Pulsara's home town of Bozeman, MT) equipped with adult and infant manikins.
Topics: STEMI EMS nursing
2 min read
Pre-Activating the Cath Lab May Improve STEMI Survival Rates [New Research]
By Hannah Ostrem on Oct 04, 2018
According to a recent study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, activating the cath lab for patients with STEMI diagnosis before their arrival at the hospital led to significantly shorter wait times, shorter door-to-device times, and ultimately reduced mortality.
A review of the study in MedPage Today stated: "Activating the cardiac catheterization laboratory at least 10 minutes before an ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) patient arrived at the hospital was associated with less reperfusion delay -- and possibly better in-hospital survival, a large registry study showed.
Among patients with a pre-hospital diagnosis of STEMI who were transported by ambulance to a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) center, 41% had the cardiac cath lab activated more than 10 minutes before hospital arrival. Compared to cases with later cath lab activation, these patients were more likely to (P<0.001 for all):
- Be transported directly to the cath lab (23.3% versus 5.3%)
- Spend less time between hospital arrival and cath lab arrival (median 17 versus 28 min)
- Have shorter door-to-device time (40 versus 52 min)
- Achieve first medical contact-to-device times of 90 min or less (76.6% versus 68.6%)
Topics: STEMI EMS
1 min read
Regional Communication Networks are Key to a Systems of Care Approach to Medicine.
By Hannah Ostrem on Sep 28, 2018
Tomorrow at 8:00am PST, Pulsara's Founder and CEO, Dr. James Woodson, will be speaking at Take Heart America's State of the Future of Resuscitation Conference in Oakland, CA. The goal of the conference is to "discuss ways to combine the best evidence and experience from the innovative work of the participants to optimize the systems-of-care approach to cardiac arrest."
Dr. Woodson will present about the need for regional communication networks, and how they are critical to a systems of care approach to cardiac arrest.
Topics: STEMI
3 min read
How to Use Checklists to Counter the Effects of Fatigue and Improve Patient Care
By Team Pulsara on Sep 11, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following content originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Tim Nowak for EMS1 BrandFocus. Tim is the founder and CEO of Emergency Medical Solutions LLC, an independent EMS training and consulting company that he developed in 2010. He's been involved in EMS and emergency services since 2002 and has worked as an EMT, paramedic and critical care paramedic in a variety of urban, suburban, rural and hospital settings. He’s also been involved as an EMS educator, consultant, item writer, clinical preceptor, board member, reference product developer, firefighter and hazmat technician throughout his career.
“Medic 1 calling General Hospital with a patient care report."
“Go ahead, Medic 1.”
“Medic 1 is transporting one patient, non-emergent. 67-year-old female coming from a nursing home that meets our sepsis alert criteria. The patient has recent pneumonia with congested lung sounds. Respirations are at 24, heart rate of 120, blood pressure of 88/42 with an end-tidal CO2 of 23 and a temperature of 100.7 degrees. We’ve started an IV and are administering a fluid bolus. ETA is 10-15 minutes.”
Topics: Stroke STEMI Sepsis Communication Technology
1 min read
Mississippi Health System Uses Technology to Speed Critical Communication.
By Team Pulsara on Aug 24, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following news story originally appeared on Mississippi new site WLOX. Read the full story here.
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New mobile technology is being used to help [reduce treatment times] at Singing River Health System.
Singing River health care providers say Pulsara, a new medical application, dramatically speeds up communication between First Responders and their hospital emergency departments.
Every minute counts during an emergency. That's why health experts say this new mobile communication tool is so important.
Topics: Stroke STEMI Technology Innovation
2 min read
CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Health System Sets Record Low Treatment Times for Stroke and STEMI [Press Release]
By Team Pulsara on May 24, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LONGVIEW, TX -- May 24, 2018 -- CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Health System, the first health system in the nation to implement Pulsara, continues to see an improvement in Door-To-Needle (D2N) times during stroke and Door-To-Balloon (D2B) times during heart attack treatments. Research shows that quicker treatment time equates to better patient outcomes. The communications platform, Pulsara, is now the standard of care for the entire region; used by every hospital and EMS agency in the area.
Topics: Stroke STEMI Press
2 min read
How Simple Miscommunications Can Cost A Life
By Hannah Ostrem on Apr 18, 2018
I recently heard a story about a STEMI patient that really drove home the magnitude of healthcare's communication problem. In this case, a member of the care team had administered a medication, and in the haste of the emergency, this critical piece of information was missed by other members of the care team. Can you predict what happened next? Yep. Another clinician administered the exact same dose again moment later. Luckily, the error wasn't life threatening, but it easily could have been.
Topics: STEMI Healthcare Communication
1 min read
Inconsistencies in Processes of Care Result in Variable Survival Rates for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.
By James Woodson, MD on Mar 09, 2018
Recently, the AHA released recommendations that cardiac resuscitation systems of care be put in place and should involve "interconnected community, emergency medical services, and hospital efforts to measure and improve the process of care and outcome for patients with cardiac arrest."
Topics: Stroke STEMI Communication
1 min read
In-Hospital STEMI Cases Have 10x Higher Mortality Rate than Out-of-Hospital STEMIs. Here's What You Can Do About It.
By James Woodson, MD on Feb 27, 2018
Topics: STEMI
1 min read
Healthcare Systems Concepts -- What is a System? Part 1 [Vlog]
By Mic Gunderson on Feb 20, 2018
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following blog post was written by guest author Mic Gunderson, President of the Center for Systems Improvement. Mic has been involved in emergency healthcare for over 40 years in leadership, managerial, and clinical positions including prior service as National Director for Clinical Systems for the American Heart Association.
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High performing systems of care for high-risk time-sensitive conditions like cardiac arrest, major trauma, STEMI, stroke, and sepsis are critical to achieving excellent patient outcomes. To make significant improvements in these systems of care, we need to understand how systems work in general so that we can look beyond the individual hospitals and EMS agencies that make up the ‘parts’ in these systems of care.
Topics: Stroke STEMI Healthcare Communication
2 min read
Research: Can Pulsara Facilitate Communication for Multi-Organizational and Multi-Disciplinary Clinicians?
By Hannah Ostrem on Dec 13, 2017
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."
Topics: Stroke STEMI Communication Australia
3 min read
Australian Health Systems Reduce D2B and D2N Times by 28 and 33 Minutes Respectively [Preliminary Research]
By Hannah Ostrem on Dec 07, 2017
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.
Topics: Stroke STEMI Communication Australia
2 min read
A Call to All Who Run Towards Mayhem
By James Woodson, MD on Sep 22, 2017
You chose this career.
Why?
Why did you go into public safety? Why did you go into healthcare? Why did you choose your specialty?
There are a number of possible reasons: Money. Prestige. Honor. Love. Fear. Anger. Hope. Adrenaline. Desire. Pressure. People.
Many of us in public safety and healthcare are just wired differently — especially those of us who deal with time sensitive emergencies. Imagine a group of people witnessing an emergency - a house fire, a car crash, a mass casualty event, a cardiac arrest, a sudden collapse, a STEMI, a stroke. If you were to watch their responses, you would see three types of people:
- Those who run towards the mayhem.
- Those who run away.
- Those who stand still and watch.
Topics: Stroke STEMI EMS Trauma Communication
4 min read
Patient-Centric Healthcare is a Failed Philosophy.
By James Woodson, MD on Sep 14, 2017
Is your job in healthcare to focus on and serve only the patient or is it also to serve others on the TEAM who are caring for the patient?
Patient centric healthcare as we currently practice it is a failed philosophy. We focus on serving the patient for a finite moment in time even though the patient's journey extends well beyond our specific tasks.
In this mindset, we have a system where we — yes, you and I — cause 400,000 deaths per year and 10,000 serious medical complications every day, costing the U.S. an estimated one trillion dollars a year. Additionally, 80% of these errors occur secondary to miscommunication during transitions of care.
Patient centric healthcare is not enough. We need to realize that just serving the patient is not enough — we ALSO need to serve the fellow clinicians who are serving the patient. We need patient- and people-centric healthcare.