Code STEMI Documentary Goes to London

Code STEMI is a web series that over the last year has been going to different cities to examine high-performing regional systems of care that have shown significant success improving heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest patient outcomes.

The newest episode of this documentary brings viewers to London which has one of the busiest ambulance services in the world.  The documentary talks with everyone from administrators, doctors, paramedics, EMT’s, trainers, dispatchers, and patients, to see what the London Ambulance Service did to improve patient outcomes.  Much of the results have come from closely examining 12-lead ECG results and determining if the patient should bypass the ER and go straight to a cath lab, bypassing the potential extra wait time.  The other thing the ambulance service has done is if they detect the patient is quite possibly a STEMI patient, rather than going to the closest hospital they will go to the one best equipped for that type of patient.

The web series and its makers partnered with Physio Control, and some of their units like the Lifepak 15 and Lifepak 12 are featured in episodes.  In the London episode, one EMT talks about how not long ago if someone suffered from cardiac arrest it was just a matter of fact that they would die, while now, with improvements in care and technology, city’s like London or Seattle have 30-40% survival rates.

The episodes are all around 15-20 minutes long and provide interesting and insightful developments about not only STEMI care, but also EMT and physician communication and the kinds of decisions EMT’s are making for cardiac arrest and heart attack patients.  All the episodes are well worth watching.