Related Experiment Videos
[The Internet as a solution facilitating the identification of patients with a suspected acute myocardial infarct]
1Clínica Universitária de Medicina IV, Gabinete de Audiovisuais, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, Hospital de Santa Maria.
Insights
This study introduces a novel email-based system to rapidly diagnose potential myocardial infarction (heart attack) patients. The method significantly reduces diagnostic time, enabling quicker treatment for critical cardiac conditions.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Medical Informatics
- Telemedicine
Context:
- Traditional heart disease diagnosis is time-consuming, leading to treatment delays.
- Rapid identification of "rule out myocardial" conditions is crucial for timely intervention.
- Existing diagnostic workflows lack efficiency in urgent cardiac care settings.
Purpose:
- To develop and evaluate an experimental email-based method for rapid diagnosis of potential myocardial infarction.
- To reduce the time lag between patient assessment and critical cardiac treatments like thrombolysis or coronary angioplasty.
- To establish a fast, low-cost, and simple communication channel between outpatient clinics and hospitals.
Summary:
- An experimental method using email, ISDN lines, computers, and pagers was tested across three locations.
- The process involved questionnaire completion, ECG recording, email transmission, and pager alerts for urgent consultations.
- Out of 24 attempts, 22 achieved communication responses in under 30 minutes, demonstrating high efficacy.
Impact:
- Successfully established a rapid communication system (under 30 minutes) between outpatient clinics and hospitals.
- Demonstrated a low-cost and simple solution for improving urgent cardiac care.
- Highlights the potential of telemedicine and email for efficient emergency medical response.
Abstract:
The current steps for diagnosing heart disease are very time consuming, delaying the correct identification of the problem, therefore, delaying the right treatment. In this study we have developed an experimental method using e-mail in order to identify patients with "rule out myocardial" condition and reduce the time lag for thrombolysis or coronary angioplasty in this clinical setting. Three different locations linked to the Internet by ISDN lines were used. Each line was connected with a computer. A pager and a dedicated phone line were also used. The following steps were performed for each situation: filling out of a questionnaire, ECG recording, questionnaire mailing and ECG by e-mail as attachment, pager warning that an urgent cardiology consultation was requested, including the doctor and patient's phone number, time to open the message and reply by e-mail, phone call for additional comments. A total of 24 attempts of interactive communication were performed. In 22 of those, an answer was obtained in less than 30 minutes. Two failures were recorded. One was due to a delay in the pager message, which did not arrive within the first hour; the second was due to a computer break down. This report shows that it is possible to establish a fast communication between the out patient clinic and the hospital (less than 30 minutes in most cases) at a very low cost and in a simple manner.