Lake Zurich, Kildeer responders earn award

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Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital announced that it has awarded the Lake Zurich Fire Department a Platinum Award for excellence in cardiac care.

The recognition, awarded jointly by Good Shepherd’s emergency department and the EMS department, goes to an area paramedic team that demonstrates outstanding care given to a cardiovascular patient in the pre-hospital setting. In addition, a platinum award for excellence in first responder care was awarded to the Kildeer Police Department for initiating life-saving CPR before the arrival of EMS crews.

Officials from the hospital presented the fire department’s paramedic crew and police officers with the award Tuesday, Feb. 18, in Lake Zurich.

During the holidays, 911 received an emergency call that a 55-year-old man had collapsed at Deer Park Town Center. Upon arrival, Lake Zurich paramedics recognized that the man was in cardiac arrest and administered CPR, defibrillation, medications and other treatment that promptly brought the patient’s heart function back.

After resuscitating the patient, he was transported to Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, where he received further treatment in the cardiac catherization lab. Because of the prompt care he received by paramedics, and procedures done in the cardiac catherization lab, the patient was eventually discharged from the hospital to resume his normal life.

In recent years, Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital has funded and installed wireless 12-lead communications equipment in area ambulances. This advanced technology allows paramedics to remotely send real-time electrocardiogram (ECG) transmissions directly into Good Shepherd’s ER, where emergency medicine physicians and cardiologists can view directly what’s going on inside a patient’s heart from miles away.

“It gives us the lead time we need to prepare a ‘cardiac alert’ team at the door to receive the patient — we already know what’s going on and what needs to be done,” said Dr. Joseph Giangrasso, medical director of emergency and trauma services at Good Shepherd.

It’s also one of the reasons Good Shepherd is tops in the area for fastest door-to-balloon time — the measure of how long it takes for a patient from arrival from the field to when they receive lifesaving angioplasty to clear a blocked blood vessel in the cardiac catheterization lab.

Adds Giangrasso, “The national benchmark is 90 minutes for door-to-balloon; we’re consistently below 60 minutes.” In the case of the 55-year old man, Lake Zurich paramedics administered the wireless 12-lead and transmitted the ECG test back to Good Shepherd. In the end, their door-to-balloon time was 38 minutes.

Paramedics partnering with Good Shepherd can call a “cardiac alert” in the field without transmitting the ECG, another differentiator for the hospital. Good Shepherd’s EMS department invested in rigorously training paramedics and first responders to the point where Good Shepherd is the only area hospital that has its paramedics call for a “cardiac alert” team at the hospital to assemble based on their interpretation of the 12-lead ECG.

Good Shepherd also looks to be recognized in 2011 as a certified “chest pain” center.

Advocate Good Shepherd in Barrington, is an acute care hospital with more than 700 physicians representing more than 50 medical specialties. It is part of Advocate Health Care, Illinois’ largest health care provider, named one of the top 10 hospital systems in the U.S. by Thomson-Reuters.

Advocate is a faith-based organization that exists to serve its communities. In 2009, Advocate provided more than $462 million in charity care and services to its communities. For more about Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital: www.advocatehealth.com/goodshep.

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