Mount Sinai Launches Mobile App to Optimize Care for Heart Attack Patients
Unique technology enhances outcomes during life-threatening emergencies
Mount Sinai Health System is using a first-of-its-kind mobile application to expedite and enhance care for patients with heart attacks. The app, developed by Mount Sinai’s interventional cardiologists, Emergency Department physicians, and nursing team, improves communication among doctors, nurses, and the clinical command center so that patients can get more rapid care to improve outcomes.
The app, called “STEMIcathAID,” targets patients with a complete blockage of a major heart artery, a condition known as ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction or STEMI. Every second matters for treating these patients. They require an emergency stenting procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) performed in a cardiac catheterization lab (or “cath lab”) to restore blood flow to the blocked heart artery and preserve heart muscle function; otherwise, the heart may be permanently damaged.
Annapoorna Kini, MD, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at The Mount Sinai Hospital, is behind this initiative. She designed the application and worked with an app developer to help realize the need for and launch STEMIcathAID.
“This is a unique platform that will make the standard of care of STEMI patients more predictable, efficient, and urgent. With enhanced communication, we can more reliably activate the cath lab and prepare for the patient’s arrival at the very start of treatment in the emergency room. By getting to the cath lab faster, patients will have fewer complications from the heart attack and may be discharged earlier from the hospital,” says Dr. Kini. “Our app, modeled on the American Heart Association’s recommendation of rapid cath lab-first treatment, can serve as a model for change throughout the United States.”
STEMIcathAID launched Tuesday, July 20. It involves Mount Sinai Queens, a community hospital in the borough’s Astoria section, and The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Mount Sinai Queens does not have a catheterization lab and nearly 150 patients every year with STEMI are transferred from the Mount Sinai Queens Emergency Department to The Mount Sinai Hospital’s cath lab for PCI. The road distance between the two hospitals is roughly six miles, but heavily congested New York City traffic can create challenges for STEMI patients. The app aims to expedite this process.
When a patient arrives at the Queens emergency room with chest pain and is suspected to have a STEMI, the physician opens the STEMIcathAID app and taps a “raise alarm” button. They perform an electrocardiogram (EKG, a test to help diagnose heart attack) and upload the results along with the patient’s basic information. The app sends an instant notification to the on-call interventional cardiology physician at The Mount Sinai Hospital and to the transfer center. The on-call physician reviews the information and decides if the patient needs a cath lab procedure. If so, the on-call cardiac catheterization team receives an immediate notification through the app. All cardiac team members log in and begin communicating with the team in Queens through a HIPAA-compliant chat or video call. As the patient gets moved to the ambulance and driven to The Mount Sinai Hospital, the cath lab team can track their progress through the app while urgently preparing the room and equipment for the emergency procedure. That way there’s no delay for the patient once they arrive for treatment.
Without the app, doctors and nurses must rely on multiple telephone calls between hospitals and the EKG cannot be read immediately by the Manhattan cardiologist.
“The single platform that communicates with all necessary departments allows the Emergency Department to reduce the number of calls and communication devices that the doctors and nurses typically need to use for these cardiac patients. These cases typically would require multiple phone calls to coordinate between the emergency room, cardiology, EMS, and the transfer services,” says Matthew Bai, MD, Assistant Director of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Queens. “The app has the potential to increase efficiency and reduce the time it takes to get to the cath lab for improved patient care.”
They used the app for the first time on a case involving a 46-year-old man who arrived at the Queens emergency room with chest pain and was going into cardiac shock. He was transferred to The Mount Sinai Hospital’s cath lab within 20 minutes through rush-hour traffic where doctors successfully completed his stenting procedure. Dr. Kini says this app saved a half-hour of critical time. As a result the patient had no complications and left the hospital in 48 hours.
"The launch of this app demonstrates our commitment to revolutionizing health care for patients and advancing technology to transform cardiac care,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System. “This is a new era of digital health at Mount Sinai and we are excited to be at the forefront of advancing science and using it to improve health.”
“The STEMI app will transform our STEMI processes and overall STEMI patient care. Unified multidisciplinary coordination and improved nursing handoff communication will enhance efficiency, promote safety, and prevent delays. Automated data extraction allows for immediate case review and process improvement. This mobile technology integrated into our STEMI system activation is truly taking us to the next level of high quality patient care,” explains Haydee Garcia, Director of Nursing at Mount Sinai Heart at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
The app also prompts nurses and physicians to give discharged patients the proper information about medication, diet, and follow-up care, including the post-heart attack recommendations of the American Heart Association. This should help keep patients from needing to return to the hospital.
Dr. Kini hopes to introduce the platform across the entire Mount Sinai Health System.
For more information on the app click on the link below:
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.