Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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STEMI

Cardiac alliance seeks improved care and response time for heart attack patients

Approximately 250,000 people each year suffer from a particularly deadly form of heart attack known as a STEMI (ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction), in which blood flow is completely blocked to the heart. Restoring blood flow quickly is crucial in order to save the patient’s life, yet more than 30 percent of these patients receive no life-saving intervention at all.

Michael Ross, MD

Led by Emory emergency medicine physician Michael Ross, the Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) recently announced they will be joining efforts to save even more lives. The joint agreement seeks to improve cardiac care, specifically the care of patients suffering from STEMI.

The new collaborative framework for hospital accreditation meets criteria of the AHA initiative “Mission: Lifeline,” established in 2007 to improve the processes surrounding care of the STEMI patient by eliminating the obstacles that keep patients from accessing and receiving appropriate treatments.

Mission: Lifeline systems start with the 9-1-1 call or at the point of entry in the emergency system, continue through the catheterization laboratory and through hospital discharge by promoting best practices that use the latest scientific evidence-based treatment for STEMI.

Mission: Lifeline systems currently cover more than 56 percent of the United States. Mortality rates from STEMI have decreased from 5.8 percent in 2008 to 4.8 percent in 2010.

“SCPC, through their Chest Pain Center accreditation, has already improved cardiac processes in close to 14 percent of hospitals within the U.S. and has moved this accreditation to the international setting,” says Ross, who is immediate-past SCPC president and an associate professor of emergency medicine and medical director for observation medicine at Emory.

“Collaboration between these two non-profit organizations, who share similar missions, will help bring consistency to health care delivery by providing a standard approach to the treatment of STEMI. Providing cardiac accreditation programs is in the best interest of patients, meets the needs of the health care community, and will help to significantly reduce cardiac deaths.”

Both Emory University Hospital and Emory University Hospital Midtown are not only accredited by the Society of Chest Pain Centers, but are also  the only accredited chest pain centers in metropolitan Atlanta to be accredited with PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention), which indicates a higher level of emergency cardiac care services.

Most commonly known as coronary angioplasty, PCI is a therapeutic procedure to treat the narrowed coronary arteries of the heart found in coronary heart disease. The designation is a distinguishing attribute since PCI is now the preferred treatment for heart attack patients.

For more information about heart disease and cardiac care option – from heart transplants and ventricular assist devices to imaging services and minimally-invasive interventional treatments, please visit Emory Healthcare at: http://www.emoryhealthcare.org/heart-center-atlanta/.

 

Posted on May 16, 2011 by admin in Uncategorized 1 Comment