Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center recognized by American Heart Association
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center has been recognized with the highest award from the American Heart Association for excellence in treating the most severe form of heart attacks.
The heart association honored Asante Rogue Regional with its Mission: Lifeline® Receiving Center-Gold Plus quality achievement award, which recognizes the hospital’s groundbreaking STEMI (ST segment myocardial infarction) program.
Last year, the hospital received the Mission: Lifeline® Receiving Center-Silver Plus award. The silver award recognizes a full year of achieving the program’s overall compliance scores, while the gold award recognizes at least two consecutive years of achieving the scores. A “Plus” award is awarded to receiving center hospitals that provide definitive treatment in less than two hours for at least 75 percent of their STEMI patients who are transferred from referral center hospitals.
Heart attacks are divided into two types according to their severity, and a STEMI is the more severe of the two. A STEMI is recognized by the characteristic elevation it triggers in what is called the “ST segment” of an electrocardiogram. In a STEMI heart attack, a coronary artery is completely blocked by a blood clot and most if not all of the heart muscle being supplied by the artery begins to die.
About 250,000 people in the U.S. experience STEMI heart attacks each year, requiring quick responses from everyone involved – from first responders in the field to cardiologists in the hospital.
The American Heart Association’s “Mission: Lifeline” program establishes STEMI systems based on geographic areas. The systems rely on close cooperation among emergency service providers, socalled “referral center” hospitals that offer limited treatment of STEMI patients, and “receiving center” hospitals that offer definitive care.
Asante Rogue Regional serves as the receiving center for the “State of Jefferson” STEMI program, which was one of the first in the country. It covers more than 5,000 square miles of southern Oregon and northern California; in contrast, many STEMI programs in the U.S. cover fewer than 50 square miles.
Death rates from heart attacks in the State of Jefferson region were between 8 percent and 12 percent less than a decade ago, but have been reduced to between 3 percent and 5 percent since the STEMI program was initiated.
