DeWitt and Davenport Campuses Team Up for Heart Attack Care

DEWITT, Iowa -- In 17 months, more than 90 people have come to the Emergency Department at Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt in the midst of a heart attack.

They might not have anticipated that the rural hospital would respond with a coordinated system of care that often puts their hearts in the hands of cardiologists at Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, which has produced some of the fastest heart attack response times in the nation.

Thanks to a heart attack alert system, called an M.I. Alert, these patients were stabilized in the DeWitt E.D. within an average of 35 minutes. Sixty-eight of those patients were then transported by ambulance to Genesis, Davenport, where they were rushed to a mobilized team in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab.

Despite 30 minutes of travel time between DeWitt and Davenport, the patients' blocked arteries were opened within the window of time that meets the national standard of care.

A stellar rural hospital

It's one of many reasons that the Emergency Department at Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt far exceeds your typical rural hospital.

"Because we are part of a regional health system, our patients have access to advanced technology not available at most rural hospitals," says Jeff Cooper, President of Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt. "With a coordinated system of care between the Genesis campuses, they also can receive quick access to specialists in the Quad Cities, such as trauma surgeons, neurologists, cardiologists and radiologists, if needed."

The heart attack alert system is coordination at its best. 

"With this streamlined alert process, we can more quickly transfer heart attack patients who come to us and have a direct line to the cardiologists," says Mike Helle, CCP, Director of Emergency Department/Outpatient Services/ Emergency Medical Services in DeWitt. "We're following the exact 90-minute pathway of care that the Emergency Departments in Davenport use. We also have alert systems for trauma and stroke cases, as well."

Lisa Foster, Manager of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at Genesis, Davenport, says it takes a team effort to make it happen -- from paramedics in the field to health care teams on both the DeWitt and Davenport campuses.

"So many people are working together toward the same goal -- to restore blood flow to the blocked artery," Foster says. "With a heart attack, time is muscle. From evidenced-based practice, we know that giving the patient aspirin and clot-busting drugs and then transferring them to the Cath Lab so we can open the artery as quickly as possible means less damage to the heart muscle and improved survival."

The DeWitt hospital is also part of the Genesis centralized cardiac monitoring system -- meaning that the heart rhythms of patient in DeWitt are monitored by on-site caregivers and also by telemetry technicians in Davenport.