Imagine a day and age where a person’s vital signs could be transmitted to the hospital before the patient even gets there. Well that day has arrived with the new remote electro cardiogram CAREpoint computer work station. This advanced piece of medical equipment lets paramedics of Anderson County send EKG readings directly from the field to the emergency room.

Once the images have been sent to the emergency room (via a cell phone), a computer reads the images and scans for emergency situations such as heart attacks. If such a case is found a phone attached to the computer rings, mobilizing an alarm on the computer.

This is a new defense against heart failures. On average, it takes 90 minutes after arriving to the hospital, for a patients arteries to flow properly again. With the help of this new medical equipment, the time can be cut down to only 45 minutes. By cutting down this time muscle in the heart is saved, and by doing this it can extend a person’s life.

Hudson Star Observer

If you’re going to have a heart attack, Hudson is one of the better places in the country to have it.

The local ambulance and rescue service’s upgrade to paramedic level service three years ago, along with a push by Regions Hospital in St. Paul to improve emergency care in western Wisconsin, has boosted survival rates for Hudson-area victims of cardiac arrest significantly above the national average.

So far this year, 29 percent of the cardiac arrest patients that St. Croix Emergency Medical Services has transported have returned to spontaneous breathing and blood flow by the time they reached the hospital, according to EMS Chief Eric Christensen.

Before it went to paramedic-level service in January 2005, just 8 percent of the cardiac arrest patients that St. Croix EMS transported had their pulse back and were breathing normally upon their arrival at the hospital.

Christensen said the national average for heart attack victims returning to normal functioning before arrival at the hospital is between 10 and 14 percent.

A lot has changed in the field of emergency cardiac care, according to Christensen.

“In the 20 years that I’ve been doing this, it has gone from almost load-and-go (to the hospital), to (providing) a few basic medications, to beginning actual definitive care for cardiac emergencies,” Christensen said.

The upgrade to paramedic-level service allowed St. Croix EMS to equip its workers and vehicles with the technology and medications needed to diagnose certain types of cardiac arrests and begin the treatment for them on the way to the hospital.

The portable EKG (electrocardiogram) monitors kept in the ambulance service’s two Dodge Durango chase vehicles are able to detect an ST elevated myocardial infarction, a relatively common type of cardiac arrest.

Once it is determined that the patient is in cardiac arrest, the treatment begins at the scene with ambulance personnel administering oxygen and life-saving medications such as nitroglycerin (to increase blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart), heparin (a blood thinner) and beta blockers, as well as morphine for pain.

The crew has a defibrillator for restoring the patient’s normal heart rhythm and an infusion pump to regulate the flow of medications that they begin giving him or her intravenously.

“We operate under the assumption that we are providing a practice of medicine,” said Christensen. “When you’re talking medical care, you have pre-hospital medical care and hospital medical. There have been many, many advances in both pre-hospital and hospital care.”

Dr. Mark Druffner of Hudson Physicians Clinic and Hudson Hospital is the medical director for St. Croix EMS.

Another advancement in the care of Hudson-area heart attack victims is that many of the patients now go directly to an operating room at Regions Hospital or United Hospital in St. Paul to have their blocked artery opened.

Regions Hospital, which works in partnership with Hudson Hospital, initiated its program to improve emergency service to outlying areas by establishing a medical communications center that functions almost like an air traffic control station does at an airport.

Once a St. Croix EMS paramedic determines that a patient is in cardiac arrest, he or she contacts East Metro Medical Control at Regions. The medical communications center gathers information on the patient’s condition and notifies a medical team at the Regions’ cardiac catheterization lab that the heart attack victim will be arriving shortly.

According to Christensen, the average time that elapses between St. Croix EMS reaching the cardiac arrest patient and the patient being on the operating table is 53 minutes.

The time element is critical, said Jon Stidham, cardiology outreach coordinator for Regions Hospital. The sooner a blockage is opened, the better the patient’s chances of survival. And opening the blockage quickly also preserves heart tissue, leading to fewer problems down the road for patients that survive.

Stidham is a Hudson resident. He worked as a charge nurse at Hudson Hospital before taking his current position with Regions in August. He still fills in at Hudson Hospital from time to time as a casual-call nurse.

The medical team at the Regions cardiac catheter lab shoots some dye into the patient’s blood to find the heart blockage. Then a catheter is inserted in an artery in the groin and pushed upward to the blockage in the heart, where a stent is inserted to keep the artery open.

Stidham calls it an amazing procedure.

People who a few years ago would have been dead if they suffered the same heart attack are walking out of the hospital five days later.

They can receive their follow-up care in the Specialty Clinic at Hudson Hospital, which is visited by a Regions cardiologist once a week.

Last month, Regions was named one of the nation’s top 100 heart hospitals by Thomson Healthcare, a company that completes an annual review of hospital cardiac care.

“It’s really a team effort,” Christensen says of emergency care for heart attack victims. The players include everyone from the person reporting the emergency to paramedics to the medical team at the hospital, he said

PRinside.com

- Tellem Worldwide, Inc. Susan Tellem, 310-479-6111, ext. 1 stellem@tellem.com CompuMed, Inc. (OTCBB:CMPD) - a medical informatics company serving the healthcare community with diagnostic software solutions - today announced that it has begun shipping its CardioGram(TM) enhanced electrocardiogram (ECG) machines to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Senior Aviation Medical Examiners (Sr. AME). CompuMed is a leader in providing ECG
equipment and services to more than 1,000 locations throughout the U.S and performing nearly 400,000 transtelephonic ECG interpretations annually.

Sr. AMEs are doctors providing pilot medical screening services required by the Aeromedical Certification Division of the FAA. CompuMed's CardioGram machines are compatible with the FAA's ECG Administrative Data System and are able to transmit ECG data directly to the FAA. CompuMed has added 25 Sr. AMEs to its customer base during the first step of the program. According to the FAA there are more than 1,700 Sr. AMEs in the US.

Maurizio Vecchione, CompuMed's president and CEO said, "Our FAA announcement today represents the first significant expansion of the Company's ECG business outside the prison and correctional marketplace. It is the first step in our strategy to accelerate growth of our CardioGram business by targeting new markets."

CompuMed has been a leading pioneer of telemedicine, establishing one of the nation's largest telecommunications networks for processing ECGs on a real time basis. Cardiac events are frequently life threatening. Using a CompuMed ECG terminal, an ECG can be acquired from a patient, telecommunicated to CompuMed's central computers, analyzed and received back on the ECG terminal where the ECG trace and computer interpretation are printed, all within three minutes.

If desired, CompuMed can immediately provide an over-read by a cardiologist and return the results within an hour. CompuMed recently updated its equipment offering, and customers can now select from a line of low or high volume ECG terminals, including Internet enabled systems.

Vecchione said, "We see significant new growth opportunities for CompuMed in government contracting. We are looking at the military, the VA and other agencies where timely remote access to cardiology examinations is critical. In addition to pursuing more of our core business in the correctional marketplace, we also are taking a hard look at rural health, clinical research organizations and surgical centers."

Vecchione added that because of the company's significant experience in ECG interpretations, expanding the market into new directions could be done without significantly adding costs to the company's operation.

About CompuMed

CompuMed, Inc. (OTCBB: CMPD) develops and markets products and services that combine advanced imaging with medical informatics. Its focus is on analysis and remote monitoring for patients with cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases. The Company has specialized expertise and intellectual property in telemonitoring imaging and analysis designed to improve healthcare provider workflow and patient care while reducing costs. CompuMed's core products, the OsteoGram(R) and CardioGram(TM), are cleared by the FDA and reimbursable by Medicare. The OsteoGram is a noninvasive diagnostic system that has been proven by many clinical studies to provide effective and accurate bone density measurement for screening osteoporosis and assessing hip fracture risk. The OsteoGram has significant cost advantages over other technologies in the marketplace. The CardioGram system is one of the first telecommunication networks designed to remotely interpret electrocardiograms and is used by private practice, as well as government and corporate healthcare providers nationwide. The CardioGram delivers online electrocardiogram interpretations within minutes of receipt and has the additional capability of automatically providing an over-read (i.e., follow-up review) by a cardiologist. CompuMed is headquartered in Los Angeles and distributes its products worldwide both directly and through OEM partners. Visit CompuMed online at www.compumed.net.

Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts, such as statements about markets for the Company's products and services and the Company's ability to serve such markets profitably or at all, prospective earnings, savings, revenue, operations, revenue and earnings growth, results of contracts and other financial results are forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements including statements concerning the Company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions are based largely on management's expectations and are subject to and qualified by risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, without limitation, competitive factors, outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical industry, product and service demand and acceptance, changes in technology, ability to raise capital, the availability of appropriate acquisition candidates and/or business partnerships, economic conditions, the impact of competition and pricing, capacity and supply constraints or difficulties, government regulation and other risks identified in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Annual Report on Form 10-KSB and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-QSB. All such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based after the date hereof, except as required by law.

Enhanced ECG Machines Shipped to FAA's Aviation Medical Examiners

Public Technology.net

Southampton City NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT) is deploying a telemedical electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation service to give expert cardiology reporting for patients in clinics.

The service delivers immediate diagnosis from qualified clinicians at a primary care level, whilst reducing the pressures on acute healthcare providers within Southampton City PCT.

The cardiac monitoring service, from Broomwell Healthwatch, offers non-cardiology clinicians accurate, expert, diagnostic support, enabling them to make informed clinical decisions and provide preventative support to patients with chest pain symptoms. This will reduce the need for hospitalisation and deliver cost and resource savings to Southampton City PCT.

Southampton City PCT has in excess of 250,000 registered patients. With a single cardiac bed costing the PCT £3000 per week, the Heartview Professional service from Broomwell Healthwatch, costing £1500 per annum, will ensure clear cost benefits across the Trust by reducing the number of patient referrals to local acute hospitals, freeing up beds and reducing some of the pressures on the ambulance service and local emergency departments.

The Heartview Professional service has proven to be a vital diagnostic aid for both GPs and nurse practitioners in other parts of the UK in making informed clinical decisions and improving outcomes. It has also provided strong clinical risk management; ensuring patients receive the correct care.

Chris Webb, Specialist and Clinical Equipment Services Manager for Southampton City PCT said: “The Heartview Professional service has proved to be an invaluable asset to Southampton City PCT and there has been good support for the service from the PCT’s cardiac team. Work is now under way to expand the usage into GP practices. Delivering optimal patient care is the Trust’s priority and having access to fast, expert advice on sometimes complex cardiac issues is an invaluable aid.”

The service has also had a positive response from patients. Using cardiac telemedicine alongside other conventional methods of evaluation delivers a fast and accurate diagnosis, reassuring the majority of patients that their chest pain symptoms are not indicative of any immediate threatening condition, thus preventing unnecessary hospital visits, whilst those in immediate danger are transferred to definitive care.

Chris Webb continues: “For Southampton City PCT, the Broomwell service has been of tremendous value. It is flexible, available round-the-clock and the staff are always helpful, and we are now looking to widen the usage across more PCT services. I believe that cardiac telemedicine such as this should be deployed more widely within the primary care environment as the results show a benefit to patients.”

The telemedicine approach has been used successfully across a number of primary care bodies in the UK. A pilot by NHS Northwest, using Broomwell’s handheld ECG device and monitoring service, showed 82% of patients did not need to go to hospital following a test, and demonstrated the potential to save 90,000 A&E visits, 45,000 hospital admissions and minimum savings of £46 million per year to the NHS simply by cutting unnecessary hospital admissions and A&E visits for chest pain symptoms. (Following the pilot, virtually all the PCTs in Greater Manchester have joined the service).

Data from Broomwell’s own research has shown that in over 8,000 tests in past months, 90% of even symptomatic patients were managed and reassured by their local GP, and did not need hospitalisation. It is understood that without the service, at least 50% of those would have been referred to hospital (A&E or Outpatients)

Previously, patients with known cardiac conditions within Southampton City PCT were often admitted straight to hospital for an ECG, which was a time consuming and expensive process.

Broomwell were contracted to work with SCPCT following a successful bid to enter a European project sponsoring such initiatives.

Chris Webb adds: “Cardiac telemedicine can complement the expertise of local cardiologists to community services, which helps to ensure NHS resources are optimised and used effectively.”

Herald UK

A NEW test could give doctors a head start in diagnosing those patients most likely to suffer a heart attack.

The test, developed at the University of Leeds, could result in fewer patients needlessly admitted to hospital – enabling medics to concentrate on those most needing their help.

Alistair Hall, Professor of Clinical Cardiology at Leeds, explained: “Casualty departments regularly see patients presenting with chest pains. The highest-risk patients are easy to diagnose and are admitted straight away. Those with no risk of having a heart attack are also easy to spot. It’s the group in between which is hardest to correctly diagnose. Typically patients are admitted for 24 hours while the hospital figures out the cause.”

The most commonly-used diagnostic tool is the troponin test which can detect and evaluate heart injury and separate it from chest pain due to other causes. Essentially if troponin proteins are found in the patient’s blood, then it indicates a heart problem. But Prof Hall explained that the troponin test can give both false negative and false positive results, meaning some patients are unnecessarily admitted, and others wrongly discharged.

A new test, developed at Leeds through research funded by the British Heart Foundation, searches for a heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) which is released into the circulation following heart injury (myocardial ischemia). Prof Hall said: "The H-FABP test is a major advance on what we had before. It appears to be able to detect milder and earlier degrees of heart injury than do current tests which detect heart cell death.”

The team’s findings are published in the American Journal of Cardiology: "Our paper shows that it is possible to be more effective in matching life-saving treatments to the patients with heart attacks who most likely to benefit from them," said Prof Hall.

The test also enables medics to identify patients whose chest pains are an indication that they are susceptible to heart attack in the weeks and months ahead. “If you can pick these problems up in advance you could have a three-month head start in putting prevention in place,” he added.

"The study was conducted in UK in the context of a national health care system that forces hard decisions to be made regard the best use of limited resources. This blood test, which will cost about £10, could be used by ambulance crews to test people on the way to hospital. This test will enable us to send the right people home earlier and make sure we aren’t admitting people who don’t need to be admitted.

"We are excited about these findings as we believe that they will help us to provide very real benefits for patients and those who care for them."

Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "Currently doctors rely on tests such as an electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood tests to know if a patient with chest pain has suffered any heart damage.

“This new blood test would appear to be able to more accurately identify patients with heart damage at an earlier course of their illness. If further research confirms its superiority over current tests, it has the potential to improve diagnosis and identify those people who require intensive.-University of Leeds

JAMA

Infusion of a combination therapy consisting of glucose, insulin, and potassium, which was thought could be a beneficial treatment immediately following a heart attack, may increase the risk of heart failure and death in the first 3 days for patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram following a heart attack), according to a study in the November 28 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Small studies have supported the use of glucose-insulin-potassium (GIK) infusion in the treatment of STEMI, while a larger study indicated a neutral effect of GIK infusion on the risk of death at 30 days after a heart attack, according to background information in the article.

Rafael D?, M.D., of the Etudios Cardiologica Latin America, Rosario, Argentina, and Abhinav Goyal, M.D., M.H.S., from the Emory School of Medicine, Atlanta, and colleagues conducted a study to determine the association between GIK infusion therapy and 30-day and 6-month outcomes in patients with STEMI, and whether GIK infusion may cause harm in the early post-infusion period. The study included analysis of the outcomes of the OASIS-6 GIK randomized controlled trial of 2,748 patients with acute STEMI, and the prespecified analyses of the combined trial data from the OASIS-6 GIK and CREATE-ECLA GIK trial populations of 22,943 patients with acute STEMI.

The researchers found that in the OASIS-6 trial, there were no differences between the GIK infusion and control groups in the 30-day outcomes of death, heart failure, or the composite of death or heart failure. There also were no differences in six-month clinical event rates

In the combined OASIS-6 and CREATE-ECLA GIK trial results, there were no differences between the GIK infusion and control groups in the 30-day rate of death, heart failure, or the composite of death or heart failure. In the analyses from days 0 to 3, the risks of death and the composite of death or heart failure were higher in the GIK group compared with the control group, with 712 deaths (6.2 percent) in the GIK group and 632 deaths (5.5 percent) in the control group; and 1,509 death or heart failure events in GIK group (15.8 percent) and 1,388 events in the control group (14.5 percent). The difference in the death rate disappeared by 30 days, with 1,108 deaths (9.7 percent) in the GIK group and 1,068 (9.3 percent) in the control group.

"GIK therapy increased levels of glucose, potassium, and net fluid gain post-infusion, all three of which predicted death after adjusting for multiple confounders. Adjusting for glucose, potassium, and net fluid gain eliminated the apparent increase in mortality at 3 days observed with GIK infusion, suggesting a direct association with these factors. Administration of GIK infusion within 4 hours of symptom onset yielded no benefit compared with later initiation," the authors write.

"The combined OASIS-6 and CREATE-ECLA trial analysis of almost 23,000 patients with STEMI (the largest global experience with GIK therapy) demonstrates that GIK infusion has no effect on any important clinical end point through 30 days following STEMI. However, contrary to our prespecified hypothesis, we observed a higher rate of death and the composite of death or heart failure at 3 days in patients allocated to GIK therapy compared with control."

http://jama.ama-assn.org/

TMCNet

Aerotel Medical Systems, one of the world's leading manufacturers of advanced telemedicine and remote monitoring solutions, has signed an agreement with T-Care Conhecimento e Saúde SA, an emerging telehealth and telecare service provider in Portugal.


As part of the contract, T-Care will distribute Aerotel's advanced remote monitoring products and associated software in Portugal.

The agreement will help T-Care in offering its clients the most advanced range of telemedicine and home care services, which include tele-assistance and tele-cardiology. These solutions help healthcare organizations such as hospitals, private and public healthcare institutions in providing their patients with an easy and efficient way to determine their health condition. The company has set-up a modern remote monitoring call center in the city of Vila Real, in the North of Portugal with Aerotel's technical assistance.

The advanced telemedicine and telehealth solutions include:

TCareCuidados:
Medi-CliniQ -- A multi-patient data communication hub and acquisition center that is designed for public places like community clinics, assisted living, pharmacies, etc. It helps in the transmission of clinical values to a medical center over the Internet. These values include electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure, pulse oximeter, blood glucose level, weight, etc.
Homecare data communication hubs -- Connects multiple medical sensors in the home for chronic care & disease management by transmitting the data to a medical call center through regular phone lines (Tele-Modem) or over the Internet (Connect-LAN). This solution offers the bestTCO for home monitoring of medical parameters. It is also the best means to monitor chronically ill patients.

TCareCoração:
HeartView -- It’s the market’s smallest professional 12-lead ECG Transtelephonic Recorder/Transmitter. It helps in the transmission of comprehensive ECG data from anywhere and at any time, over the phone, to the Aerotel's Heartline Receiving Station for immediate diagnosis.
HeartOne -- It is a single lead, easy-to-use, ultra-compact ECG recorder/transmitter. A portable solution, HeartOne is capable of maximizing patient mobility. Moreover, it is small enough to fit into one’s pocket. This makes it readily available whenever needed. The recorded results can be transmitted to the Heartline Receiving Station (HRS) via any standard telephone.
Cardiac Loop Event Recorders -- The user-friendly loop event recorders (1 or 2 lead models) offer accurate documentation of transient cardiac symptoms. Subsequently, it helps in long-term transtelephonic monitoring of cardiac activity.
Call Center Receiving Solutions -- A wide range of remote receiving solutions for medical monitoring with the help of powerful software tools. These are developed for healthcare service providers and monitoring call centers that support multiple home care and mobile care users in remote locations.

TCareALERTA:
SKeeper -- It is a wearable Personal Safety Alarm Phone. SKeeper is a cellular communicator device designed by Aerotel to help elderly people, children or lone workers to remain in touch with their relatives or caregivers. In doing so, they can receive immediate help from a tele-assistance center with round the clock human response.

These advanced monitoring solutions also incorporate Aerotel's web integration tool. Patients or doctors can gain remote access to data stored in the patient database, from anywhere, with the help of this tool. These software programs enable the optimization of disease management programs. This is achieved by helping healthcare providers to review and share relevant patient information from anywhere. Additionally, they enable healthcare providers to achieve and maintain long-lasting relationships with their patients and save costs significantly.