The Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency (ICEMA) has officially designated San Antonio Community Hospital (SACH) as a STEMI Receiving Center (SRC), making it one of two hospitals in San Bernardino County to receive the impressive designation.

Under the new designation, if a patient is determined to be having a “STEMI,” (or ST-elevation myocardial infarction) heart attack , paramedics in the field are required to bypass non-designated SRC hospitals and take these patients, if they live within a 30-minute radius, to SACH’s Emergency Department to make sure they receive qualified STEMI care.

Medically termed an ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), this type of heart attack is caused by a clot or clots in one or more of the coronary arteries. Recent studies have confirmed that quick timing and special expertise are crucial in treating this type of heart attack in order to save the patient and preserve as much of the heart muscle as possible. This means rapid intervention by specially-trained hospital teams like those at SACH.

SACH earned its STEMI Receiving Center designation based on the experience and expertise of its medical team, and the advanced technology and processes the hospital already has in place to rapidly handle heart attack patients.

When a STEMI patient arrives, physicians, nurses, and clinicians in SACH’s Emergency Department and Heart Center cardiac catheterization lab work as a well coordinated team to immediately begin treatment. The best intervention for a STEMI heart attack is rapid percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which means a procedure is performed in the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab. In the lab, a coronary stent is placed in the patient’s blocked artery, the stent is inflated with a balloon-like device and blood is then allowed to flow freely to the heart muscle again.

Because the first 90-120 minutes after a STEMI heart attack is crucial, the medical community has established a time parameter of less than 90 minutes for treating STEMI patients. The treatment window is referred to as “door-to-balloon time,” and is endorsed by both the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. This means from the time the patient enters the emergency department, until they undergo the angioplasty procedure and the artery is opened for blood to flow, no more than 90 minutes should elapse. In order to receive the designation as a STEMI receiving center, the SACH medical team had to consistently provide “door to balloon time” care to STEMI patients below the established 90-minute benchmark.

Prior to the SRC program, patients were routed to the nearest emergency room, regardless of the level of cardiac services available. The SRC program now ensures that patients receive the benefit of treatment by qualified STEMI experts such as those found in the Emergency Department and the Heart Center at San Antonio Community Hospital.