A Cleveland Clinic-developed protocol significantly improved the chances of in-hospital survival among patients who experience the most severe type of heart attack, regardless of socioeconomic factors, according to a Nov. 15 Cleveland Clinic press release.
The standard was implemented at Cleveland Clinic in 2014. It includes four components: a standardized emergency department cardiac catheterization lab activation criteria, a safe handoff checklist, immediate transfer to a cardiac catheterization lab, and using the wrist's radial artery as the first option for access to the heart’s arteries.
The study, published Nov. 15 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, compared outcomes of 1,761 patients from different socioeconomic neighborhoods across northeast Ohio, before and after the protocol was implemented.
Noted limitations of the study included the data being collected at a single facility.
Researchers found door-to-balloon time, the amount of time it takes to reopen a blocked heart artery from the time a patient enters the hospital, improved significantly for all patients.The rate of in-hospital death among patients residing in low socioeconomic neighborhoods also decreased by over 50 percent.
Read the full study here.