Pulsara Blog

When a clinician looks at an EKG, they can depict a STEMI, arrhythmias, and so much more. However, as a non-clinician, when I look at an EKG, I see an electrical circuit built up of many components where the heart is central power unit.  

For many years, I helped develop and build data acquisition systems for a neuro-focused company.  I've found that this experience has given me a slightly different perspective of what is going on under the hood of an EKG than your average layperson or even clinician.

...Okay, well the most obvious way to celebrate St. Patrick's day in a heart healthy way with your pooch would be to take him or her outside for a short jog. Seriously, new research has shown that even exercising even as little as 5 minutes per day DRASTICALLY reduces all-cause AND cardiovascular mortality. But I digress. 

ThedaCare, a seven-hospital system in Northeast Wisconsin, serves over 200,000 patients per year and has always prided itself on being at the forefront of implementing new ways to provide the best, cutting edge medical care possible for its patients. Recently (also announced in a press release on March 14), this goal has materialized in the form of ThedaCare's partnership with Pulsara. 

We all know that Vitamin D is an essential nutrient and that deficiency can cause mood disorders, fatigue, and muscle weakness. But research has also shown that decreased exposure to the sun correlates with higher levels of heart disease. 

We all know that when it comes to time sensitive emergencies, like stroke or STEMI, time is tissue. As such, it should come as no surprise that a recent study performed by the University of California-San Francisco and the National Bureau of Economic has found that among 30,000 heart attack patients, those who were transported by ambulances that were diverted from busy ERs to other, further away hospitals, were 10 percent more likely to be dead one year later. 

Fewer things are more frustrating for a medic than calling in a STEMI. First they have to send the ECG in for the physician to see before they arrive at the hospital, and then they are asked to stop at the door to get another one using the hospital’s ECG machine. When they could be out saving more lives, duplicating their efforts is the last thing they want to be doing.

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.

The findings of new research support the notion that improving heart attack outcomes begins with patient education.

The study - which suggests that early treatment to restore blood flow rapidly after heart attack symptom onset may reduce heart tissue damage - tested 2056 patients who had received treatment in three different time groupings. The first group received treatment less than 2 hours after symptom onset, the second group received treatment 2-4 hours after symptom onset, and the third group received treatment more than 4 hours after symptom onset.

2015 has been an amazing year for Pulsara. We grew our incredible team, gained some amazing clients, helped several facilities finally acheive their desired D2N and D2B times, and pushed out some truly revolutionary features on our platform - all in the name of improving patient outcomes for time sensitive emergencies. 

To celebrate a successful year, we thought we'd reflect on Pulsara's 5 most popular blog posts from 2015. Some were funny, others serious, but all were educational. Take a look for yourself!

Perhaps the best testimonial a company like Pulsara could hope for, is one where someone is in a job they love so much that they say they will retire from that job - only to be so touched by our potential to impact lives on such a large scale that they feel compelled to come work for us instead. 

Brandon Means is a paramedic and RN who loves saving lives and helping sick patients above all else. In his past role, he was also a customer of Pulsara. After noting the effect the company had on door-to-needle and door-to balloon times, Brandon realized the opportunity to impact lives on such a broad scale was a chance he could not turn down and became one of our Clinical Specialists. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Recently, Brandon was chosen by Sam Bradley, host of the Disaster Podcast, to be featured on an episode of The MedicCast. The episode was cast live from the PhysioControl Studios on the floor of the EMS World Expo earlier this fall, after Sam saw a demo of Pulsara. 

I was sitting next to one of our Lead QA Engineers at Pulsara and as he was looking through our app's use statistics. He made an observation that piqued my interest: "We have consistently fewer users on the weekends! I wonder if there is decreased incidence of time-sensitive emergencies on those days?" 

Intrigued by the thought that emergency conditions like STEMI and stroke—which are highly unpredictable in nature—could be somehow pinned down to a day-of-the-week trend, I decided to delve in deeper and see if there was any literature to back up the hunch. Here's what I found:

A recent survey conducted by Infinite Convergence Solutions shows that the majority of healthcare institutions in the United States are using messaging apps and services that do not meet enterprise-grade standards for HIPAA and security regulations.

According to FierceMobileHealthcare, Infinite Convergence's CEO, Anurag Lal, said "CIOs and IT leaders in healthcare institutions need to make available an official ... messaging platform to their employees which also allows them to implement administrative, physical and technical safeguards that HIPAA requires." 

If your wife wanted you to pick up some milk on your way home, would she send you a fax or a page? Would she have her assistant call your answering service who will then let you know that you need to call her to tell you she needs some milk? 

Sounds ridiculous, right? In reality, your wife will simply text you. In 2 seconds, she can relay the simple message to you, you get it in real time, and can quickly type back "got it." It's simple, fast, effective communication that just makes sense. 

Unfortunately, when lives are on the line, we are still doing communications in the backwards, roundabout, convoluted way described in the first paragraph of this post and by Pulsara's CEO Dr. James Woodson in The Disaster Podcast's latest episode. 

We've been saying it from day 1: time is tissue. As such, your critical care team needs to be impeccably organized to consistently shave minutes off of STEMI and stroke cases and ultimately provide better outcomes for your patients. At Pulsara, we are dedicated to helping you do just that. 

But don't take our word for it! Erlanger Medical Center is an impressive facility in Chattanooga, TN, serving as the area's only level-one trauma center and boasting the fourth largest interventional stroke program in the country. Erlanger also shines in cardiovascular care, with an average time to intervention of just 62 minutes (versus the 90-minute national standard).

Dr. Zubin Damania is a physician who, like many of his peers, felt trapped in a system that was dictating every aspect of his caregiving for him - forcing him to spend the majority of his time on reporting and data entry rather than with patients.

As an activist and advocate for better healthcare that fits with the pace of the modern world, Dr. Damania has devoted his spare time to breaking down barriers doctors face that prevent them from providing optimal care through his entertaining, creative, and genius parody music videos. When he's not being "ZDoggMD," Dr. Damania is transforming the traditional healthcare experience into one that is focused on the patient, rather than on bureaucracy.

Did you know that the NUMBER ONE cause of death in American women today is heart disease? With the higher-than-ever demands of women's professional, social, and family lives, it's tempting for women (men too!) to put their own health needs last. After all, it'll never happen to you ... right?

The American Heart Association released the following short film inspired by true stories of women who have suffered heart disease in hopes of educating others about the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular distress. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, who also stars in the short film, "Just a Little Heart Attack" sends a powerful message that's crucial for all of us, woman or man, to hear: despite the seemingly all-important demands of our lives, our heart health needs to come first. 

Pulsara has been awarded the EMS Top Innovation Award, as announced at the September 2015 EMS World Expo in Las Vegas. This award is presented to the most innovative products of the year, as judged by a panel from the EMS World Expo Faculty and EMS World Editorial Advisory Board.

Pulsara is a platform that performs like an app to coordinate and simplify the care process for STEMI and stroke. The Pulsara story starts at a dinner party in late 2011, when a group of dedicated medical professionals who were part of Leading Edge Medical Associates (LEMA) came together to discuss a challenge: “How can we improve patient care in our facilities? How can we help our healthcare system pursue value based healthcare – providing improved quality of care at a lower cost?”

Memorial Healthcare System Improves Stroke and STEMI Case Times With New Technology

HOLLYWOOD, FL: Memorial Healthcare System has implemented a mobile application to simplify care coordination and improve outcomes for emergency patients at Memorial Regional Hospital’s Comprehensive Stroke Center in Hollywood, FL

When it comes to emergency conditions such as STEMI or stroke, time is a critical factor in determining patient outcome. Unfortunately, even the most advanced treatment centers experience delays when providing care as a result of outdated processes and archaic technologies that waste time and create chaos.

You've heard it before: "Time is tissue."

When it comes to heart attack, this statement is painstakingly true. Only a few years ago, it was standard for patients to wait two hours before cardiologists were able to get their blood flowing again. Now, thanks in large part to national goals set forth by the American College of Cardiology, the standard for case completion of heart attacks is 90 minutes. 

According to a recent article in the New York Times, a small community hospital in the town of Camden, New Jersey was able to reduce its average STEMI treatment times from 93 minutes in 2007 to 71 minutes in 2011 to 50 minutes currently.

Do you believe that “time is tissue?”

Two million brain cells die every minute when your patient is having a stroke. With that knowledge, how can we decide on an “acceptable” treatment time? Is it the 60-minute national benchmark? What about a 45-minute treatment time? Perhaps even 30 minutes? Think about that math for a second and how many neurons you could spare by cutting your treatment times for stroke. Similarly, how much cardiac tissue could be spared by reducing STEMI times?