When it comes to rushing to save the lives of patients at Mercy Medical Center with a critically blocked artery, the Jackson Township Fire Department is among the best.
The Canton hospital recently recognized the fire department with its STEMI Cup award for achieving the best “door-to-balloon” time for the second half of 2013.
The door-to-balloon time measures how long it takes from when patients arrive in the ER with heart attack symptoms to when they undergo a catheterization to open the blocked artery.
The Jackson Township squad worked with emergency department and cath lab staff to achieve an average time of 10 minutes, according to a news release.
Overall, many of the hospital’s patients have a door-to-balloon time within 15 minutes — well below the national goal of less than 90 minutes.
In recent years, hospitals nationwide have been focusing on improving their response times for a type of heart attack known as a STEMI, or St-elevated myocardial infarction.
When the characteristic pattern of a STEMI shows up on an electrocardiogram, the results indicate a complete blockage on a major artery. The longer the artery remains blocked, the larger the risk of serious complications or death.
Drs. Ahmed Sabe and Frank Kaeberlein, co-directors of Mercy’s Emergency Chest Pain Center, established the STEMI Cup to recognize efforts by local emergency medical responders.
“This award recognizes not only the advancements that we — the collaborative team of ED [emergency department] and cardiac cath lab nurses, technologists and doctors — have made in cardiac care, but the dedication and quick responsiveness of our local EMS,” Sabe said in a prepared statement.
Tobacco request
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is joining with attorneys general from 27 other states to ask the nation’s largest pharmacy chains to stop selling tobacco products.
The AGs have written to the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Safeway and Kroger to ask them to remove all tobacco products from their shelves.
The move comes after CVS recently decided to stop selling tobacco in its stores.
“My fellow attorneys general and I are asking these national retailers to take an additional step forward in keeping tobacco products away from youth by voluntarily not selling them in their stores with pharmacies,” DeWine said in a prepared statement. “The health of our kids is just too important.”
Top nursing homes
Several local nursing homes and residential care facilities recently were recognized by the Ohio Department of Aging for ranking among the top 25 in the state for patient satisfaction.
Wooster Community Hospital Skilled Nursing Facility, the Laurels of Massillon and Aultman Transitional Care Center each were among the top 25 for nursing homes.
For assisted living/residential care facilities, local facilities ranking among the best included Townview Terrace in Wooster, Anna Maria of Aurora Inc., Rochester Park in Navarre, Pleasant Pointe Assisted Living in Barberton, Western Reserve Masonic Community in Medina, the Village of St. Edward in Fairlawn, the Gables of Hudson and St. Luke Lutheran Community-Minerva.
Steve Wermuth, interim president and chief executive of LeadingAge Ohio, a group representing nonprofit nursing facilities, pointed out nonprofits performed well on the lists.
“More than half of the top 25 skilled nursing facilities are not-for-profit, despite representing just 22 percent of all such facilities statewide,” Wermuth said. “Likewise, nearly one-third of the top 25 residential care facilities are not-for-profit, even though they comprise less than a quarter of such facilities in Ohio.”
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or cpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/CherylPowellABJ.