COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION of TEXAS

2014 Impact Report

Case Study: Creating a Model STEMI Program, continued

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 hen AHA conducted primary research for its community awareness strategy, it encountered W some unanticipated patient perceptions involving mistrust and misconceptions in the personnel and process involved when 911 is called in a heart attack emergency. Specifically, it found that the ambulance is not considered a point of care but is viewed generally as transportation, that 911 responders are not regarded as medical professionals with the skills to deliver heart attack treatment to save lives, and that there is little awareness that the ambulance and hospital need to communicate and transmit patient information that expedites treatment upon patient arrival. The conclusion was that much of the Dallas County community that needs the system most does not know that it can trust the system to perform. A Dallas County-centric campaign is required to leverage the work that has been completed in rebuilding the heart attack response system.

What Was Accomplished. AHA has gone a long way toward fulfilling its commitment to develop and implement a coordinated STEMI program that would transform heart attack patient care in Dallas County and serve as a model for the rest of the state and the country. At the individual level, the program boldly aspired to change the course of life for every future heart attack victim. In many cases, the implementation of the program was able to shift patients from imminent death to sustained life, and return loved ones to their families. At the system level, this model program transformed the complex network of local emergency public safety servants and receiving hospitals from a loosely connected web to a true working system. It achieved this result by providing critical resources, sharing data, and providing the collaboration needed to reach the program’s full impact potential. At the global level, the STEMI program implemented through this grant has generated new scientific knowledge to provide health care systems and other grantmakers with a model partnership to emulate in order to transform their own communities in turn.

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