Profession

Push to get patients angioplasty more quickly

NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 11, 2006

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The American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Assn. and other heart groups have launched a campaign to help hospitals reduce the time it takes them to perform life-saving, emergency angioplasties for patients who suffer ST-elevation myocardial infarction. The campaign, dubbed Door to Balloon (D2B): An Alliance for Quality, focuses on implementing strategies that a major study found significantly reduced the time between when a patient arrived and an angioplasty balloon was inserted.

These strategies include having emergency physicians activate the catheterization lab with a single call and giving the cath lab team at most a half-hour to arrive and be ready to work.

"The introduction of this new campaign is a giant step toward increasing the quality of patient care for heart attack patients," said Raymond Gibbons, MD, president of the American Heart Assn.

The campaign was launched at the AHA's November meeting in Chicago. Campaign organizers will assess the program's impact at the cardiologists' March 2007 annual meeting in New Orleans.

To learn more about the campaign, contact Jason Byrd ([email protected]" target="_blank">link).

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/12/11/prbf1211.htm.

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