mHealth Intelligence reports…

Much like telestroke vehicles bring emergency treatment to stroke victims in the field, a new vehicle being developed by the University of Minnesota Department of Medicine aims to treat heart attack patients the same way.

The UM’s Minnesota Mobile Resuscitation Consortium (MMRC) is getting ready to roll out a mobile health van that can treat patients on the scene via extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The process uses a machine that oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs to recover, then pumps that blood back into the body through cannula.

It’s great news…

MMRC officials note that the common procedure for treating patients in cardiac distress is CPR, but if a patient’s heart rhythm isn’t returned to a sustainable rate within 30 minutes, they’re in a refractory period and need an ECMO machine to revive them. Every 10 minutes after that point reduces the survival rate by 15 percent to 25 percent.

So instead of bringing patient to the ECMO machine at the university, the university is bringing the machine to the patients.