Seventy-six first responder ambulance corps units can add another device to the medical tool bag on their rigs to help increase the odds of survival for heart attack victims on their way to emergency facilities across the region.

Lehigh Valley Health Network is teaming up with the Eastern Pennsylvania EMS Council to improve the first response care of persons who suffer heart attacks.

LVHN recently donated $76,000 to fund the purchase of 76 broadband modems enabling ambulance personnel in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon and Schuylkill counties to send electrocardiograms effortlessly and wirelessly to area emergency rooms.

Emergency room doctors say this will accelerate the diagnosis and initiation of the life-saving care of patients suffering the most serious kinds of heart attacks, called ST-segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction, or STEMI.

The EMS Council’s gift of $50,000 will purchase the three-year data plan needed to facilitate the connection between the ambulance-based modems and the receiving hospitals.

Out-of-hospital patients suspected by EMS providers of having a heart attack typically undergo a highly sensitive, 12-lead EKG provided by a first responder to confirm the diagnosis, which is often caused by a blocked heart artery.

If the ambulance is not linked wirelessly to an emergency room via a modem, a paramedic at the scene or en-route to the emergency room interprets an EKG, then verbally alerts a hospital emergency room physician a heart attack is suspected. This is confirmed upon arrival at the hospital by a second EKG.

Ambulances equipped with modems can send the EKGs immediately to the destination emergency room’s medical command physician for confirmation by viewing a large digital image of the EKG. This gives the ER staff specific details and adequate time to prepare for the arrival of the patient and alert an in-house heart attack team of the situation.

“This new technology will greatly improve our collaborative regional system of STEMI care for patients in our communities,” Alexander Rosenau, D.O., senior vice chair of the department of emergency medicine at LVHN, said.

“Each year, thousands of persons across the greater Lehigh Valley suffer heart attacks at home, work or in other non-hospital settings.”

In addition, the emergency room physician can forward the EKG to the mobile device of the interventional cardiologist who will be treating the patient. Unblocking the heart attack-causing artery quickly gives the best chance for saving the patient’s life and the heart muscle that often has been deprived of blood during the heart attack.

“A team, system and technology that work quickly and skillfully offer the best chances of saving these patients,” Ronald S. Freudenberger, M.D, LVHN’s chief of cardiology and medical director of the network’s Chrin Heart and Vascular Center, said.

The modems were distributed to ambulance corps personnel at an event Aug. 3, at the LVHN – Cedar Crest Campus at the Lehigh Valley Hospital.

LVHN officials said the effort to provide the mobile broadband modems has been in the works for three years.