prehospital EKG transmission

[quickcath]

Hello all,

We are going for chest pain center accreditation and recently the local ems squads have implemented prehospital EKG transmission via fax. This is a great way to get the STEMIs to the cath lab quickly. However, there is no patient identifier on the EKG, therefore, there is no way we can include this EKG in the chart. Any suggestions?

[ERjodiRN]

not every county is able to retavase in the field, either. with my hospital, our field stemi patients are coming through our doors within 10-15min as it is. when the medics make base contact they tell us exactly what the 12 lead reads, word for word. it will say, ***acute MI suspected*** and the medics will tell us which leads they see injury in. we'll activate the cath lab before they come through the doors without having to see the ekg, even though sometimes we know it ends up being a case of pericarditis or simple LVH which both can read as AMI. even without this whole faxing protocol, our patients door-to-balloon time is usually within 30min. unless it's on nights when they are called in....then it's usually 45min