A new alert initiated at Riverside Methodist Hospital is helping get the most critical heart attack patients — those with ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) — from the emergency room to the cardiac catheterization lab even faster. Riverside is the first hospital in Columbus to activate a STEMI ALERT system.

“We already eclipse the national benchmark of 90 minutes for door-to-balloon time for our heart attack patients,” said Doug Van Fossen, MD, section chief of Cardiology at Riverside. “But considering how critical every minute is during a heart attack, there is always room for improvement.”

Door-to-balloon time refers to the interval between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and the opening of a blocked artery with an angioplasty balloon. Studies show that reopening clogged arteries with a balloon angioplasty is the best way to treat a severe heart attack. The procedure can cut a patient's risk of dying by 40 percent, but only if it is done within 90 minutes of the patient's arrival at the hospital.


Within minutes of arriving at the Riverside emergency room, chest pain patients receive an EKG to determine the severity of their symptoms. If it is determined the patient is having a STEMI, the emergency room physician initiates a STEMI ALERT, which is very similar to the highly successful TRAUMA ALERT that has been used in hospital emergency rooms for years.

The STEMI ALERT sets off a series of overhead and digital pages alerting all necessary staff including two cardiologists, the cardiac catheterization lab, the pharmacy and the cardiac care unit to rapidly mobilize for an emergency angioplasty or stent placement.

At the same time, emergency room nurses begin to administer a standard series of medications to stabilize the patient and prepare them for the catheterization procedure, and the patient is transported from the emergency room to the cardiac catheterization lab. Because the McConnell Heart Hospital was designed atop the emergency room, patients only have to be transported up one floor, resulting in even faster time-to-treatment.

“Many of these measures were already in place,” said Warren Yamarick, MD, medical director of Emergency Services at Riverside. “The new STEMI ALERT is simply a formalization of the protocols to ensure we are delivering the best possible care to every patient, every time.”

The STEMI ALERT also supports a new national initiative by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiologists called “Door to Balloon (D2B): An Alliance for Quality” which aims to improve the timeliness of lifesaving therapy for patients with heart attacks at the nation’s hospitals that perform emergency angioplasty.

Back to HCB News

More Industry Headlines