West Midlands heart study could save hundreds of lives
Groundbreaking research aims to prevent heart attacks.
A study into preventing heart attacks could save hundreds of lives around the world.
The research, which is being carried out by West Midlands Ambulance Service and two other ambulance services, is being funded by the British Heart Foundation and will try to establish the best way to diagnose people having a heart attack.
In the UK there are nearly 200,000 hospital visits each year due to heart attacks: the equivalent of one every three minutes, advances in treatment mean that today at least seven out of 10 people survive.
Frontline ambulance crews will work with researchers to identify if there are additional times when ambulance crews should perform an ECG (electrocardiogram) test.
Josh Miller, research paramedic, said: “Data already shows that in about a third of cases, when a patient is having a heart attack, they haven’t had an ECG done by the ambulance crew because the patient didn’t show any of the classic signs – chest pain or pain in the arm, neck, and jaw, or feelings of sickness, light-headedness or shortness of breath.
“Earlier studies show that this is more common in older people and particularly women. Because of this, the study will look to see if there are other atypical signs that ambulance staff should be looking out for.
“This is important because if an ECG was done on these patients they would get the specialist treatment they need more quickly, which might result in the crew bypassing the local hospital and going straight to a specialist centre, which means more patients will survive."
Josh says, there will be no immediate changes for ambulance crews but the study could lead to significant developments worldwide.
He added: “The second area that might change is around ambulance workforce provision; currently, not all ambulance services in the world have a paramedic on every ambulance, as is the case in the West Midlands.
"By having a paramedic on board would mean that there is someone who is trained to interpret an ECG which would allow them to identify if there is a heart attack ongoing which would lead to the patient getting taken straight to a specialist centre.”
Lee Kettle, from the British Heart Foundation, said: “This research really could lead to hundreds of lives being saved. We see this as a chance to empower ambulance staff so that they have the data and research which will give them the confidence to carry out more ECGs and therefore identify more heart attacks.”
