El Camino Hospital, a 542-bed acute care center, is using new technology to shave precious minutes off the time it takes for heart attack victims to receive lifesaving treatment.

El Camino is employing Medtronic's Lifenet System. The technology wirelessly transmits a patient's electrocardiogram (ECG) information from the ambulance back to El Camino Hospital's Emergency Department, making it possible for a doctor to assess the patient in real time. From there the information can be retransmitted to a cardiologist's e-mail or smart phone, letting the doctor rapidly interpret the results and take action immediately.

If a patient is diagnosed as suffering from the type of heart attack known as "ST elevation myocardial infarction" (STEMI), preparations can be made at the catheterization lab before the patient even arrives. As a result, El Camino Hospital's "door-to-balloon" (D2B) time - the time it takes to get a patient from the emergency room to the interventional lab for treatment - can be reduced by several minutes.

"Lifenet can let us know as quickly as possible when a patient needs blood flow restored to the heart muscle," said Chad Rammohan, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of El Camino Hospital's Chest Pain Center. "When it comes to heart attacks, the time it takes to restore blood flow is directly related to how patients do."

The American Heart Association estimates that nearly 400,000 people suffer from a STEMI heart attack in the United States each year, and recommends that D2B times for treating them be no greater than 90 minutes.