C.A.L.L., To Help Heart Attack Victims Get Treatment Quicker

When it comes to matters of the heart... seconds matter.  "It's like somebody suffocating, so eventually when the heart muscle suffocates it's gonna die."

UAMS cardiologist Ibrahim Fahdi helped develop and Wednesday, unveil "C.A.L.L."-- Cardiac Action Life Link.  Through this new partnership with MEMS, UAMS doctors in the E.R., and those at the Veterans' Hospital, will be able to get information about a person's heart, while they're still in the ambulance.  "It will take a 1 minute and a half for the information to get out of the device, to come in here,” Dr. Fahdi says.  

In the ambulance, paramedics record the patient's heart activity, which then transmits to this wireless phone.  "And the E.R. physician can wait for this patient to come to them, instead of waiting for the patient to get to the E.R. and then start the examination. Doctor Fahdi agrees with most other heart experts... that patients benefit most, when they receive treatment within 90 minutes from the time their symptoms start.

“The longer you wait to restore blood to the heart muscle, the more damage you're gonna cause to the heart muscle,” says Fahdi. "So we're talking about saving significant time."