As part of the Prairie STAT Heart Program, the second a heart attack patient enters the Emergency Room doors at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital the clock begins ticking to ensure treatment is received within the critical window of 90 to 120 minutes.

The Prairie STAT Heart Program was one of the first in the country to focus on streamlining emergency care to meet the national goal of providing angioplasty (a non-surgical procedure to treat diseased arteries) within 90 to 120 minutes of a patient’s arrival at the community hospital (often referred to as door-to-balloon time). This ensures that the patient located in the rural community receives emergent heart care as fast as or faster than patients in larger urban areas.

The 90-minute national goal is based on spending 30 minutes in an outlying community hospital, 30 minutes in transport and 30 minutes at a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) receiving center such as Memorial Medical Center.  

The Prairie STAT Heart program is a cooperative effort between Memorial Medical Center, Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants (PCC), Carbondale Memorial Hospital and 30 community hospitals in Central and Southern Illinois.  Twenty-one hospitals participate in the STAT Heart Program in the Springfield Area. Since the launch of the Prairie STAT Heart Program in December 2004 in Springfield, Illinois and in August 2007 in Carbondale, Illinois, the program has served 1,315 patients in central Illinois and 593 patients in southern Illinois, as of December 2012, who suffer from ST-elevated acute myocardial infarctions (the worst kind of heart attack).

At a recent awards ceremony, Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital received one of only six prestigious awards for “Best Median Door to Balloon (D2B) time = 90 minutes” with  a case study exhibiting a Door to Balloon time of 64 minutes. ALMH also received “Best Median Door In and Door Out” time with a time of 15 minutes. In addition to achieving the best median Door In and Door Out time, ALMH is the only hospital to achieve Door In and Door Out times under the 30 minute goal 100 percent of the time. ALMH Emergency Department Medical Director Katherine Anderson, MD, and Emergency Department Manager Tara Morris, RN accepted the award.

“We are grateful to Prairie Heart for honoring us with this prestigious award. Without their expertise and knowledge we would not be able to provide such a high level of care to our patient population,” Morris said.
“We are also thankful to our dedicated staff whose commitment to continual process improvements enables us to achieve outstanding results. We have also been blessed to have the support and participation of the Logan County Paramedics Association. It has been a professionally gratifying experience to participate in a program that has saved and changed so many lives,” said Anderson.

Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the United States. The statistics indicate that you or someone you know will develop heart disease. Regardless of where you live, rapid treatment is the key to survival. Delay in treating a heart attack reduces the chance of survival.

“The best way to treat a heart attack is to receive rapid interventional treatment at an experienced heart facility,” Morris said. “Rural critical access hospitals like ALMH want the fastest treatment for their patients. Interventions that were implemented at ALMH led us to providing our patients with this desired level of care and earning this honor and prestigious award.”

“Our vision at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital is to be a national leader for excellence in patient care,” said Dolan Dalpoas, ALMH president and chief executive officer.  “The honors we have earned for our performance regarding our emergency treatment of patients who arrive at our hospital with heart attack symptoms provides strong assurances of how diligently our physicians, nursing staff and all other caregivers are working to achieve that vision and ensure all residents of Logan and eastern Mason County that the very best medical care is available to them at their community hospital here in Lincoln.”

ALMH is a 25-bed critical access hospital located at 200 Stahlhut Drive in Lincoln, Illinois and is an affiliate of Memorial Health System. ALMH employs more than 315 in a variety of roles. For more information about ALMH, visit ALMH.org.