LAC+USC STEMI Team Win Recognition from the Board of Supervisors

Our SEIU 721 member-led, ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) Team at LAC+USC, has been recognized for being in the top 3 of emergency response times! Supervisor Hilda Solis presented our SEIU 721 member-led LAC+USC STEMI Team with official scrolls of commendation for this achievement during the September 5, 2017 meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

STEMI is a very serious type of heart attack during which one of the heart’s major arteries (one of the arteries that supplies oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the heart muscle) is blocked. STEMI Teams work to open blocked coronary arteries in minimal time, because every second without oxygen is potentially life-altering and life-threatening. There are 33 STEMI Receiving Centers organized by LA County’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency. STEMI Receiving Centers submit data to EMS regarding door-to-balloon time, (a measure of how fast it takes to open an occluded vessel) other treatment times, and clinical outcomes.

Our SEIU 721 member-led LAC+USC STEMI Team is a multidisciplinary entity working in partnership with Pre-Hospital Staff, Radiology Technicians, Cardiology, Nursing, and the Emergency Department. LAC+USC is also a teaching hospital and General Cardiology Fellows and Interventional Cardiology Fellows are also highly involved in the work of the STEMI Team. The core of the program involves a group of STEMI Nurses that rotate call coverage, triage and care for STEMI patients and manage data collection for what is known as a “QA/QI process” designed to generate ongoing improvements to the program.

As Karen Hayes, an LAC+USC steward and  STEMI Team member since 1981 said, “People come to us dying. We save their lives and give them to a quality of life that allows them to enjoy years with their loved ones. We have to be fast and get it right each time, without fail. Every single time I do this work I think about my kids. And I act with that level of passion and urgency. We all do.”

LAC+USC has consistently been rated as a top hospital with a participating STEMI Receiving Centers. Our performance is a direct result of a Culture of Partnership that functions interdepartmentally, between Cardiology and Emergency Department, and intra-departmentally, between Labor and Management, with the support of Dr. Spellberg, the CMO, as well as Annie Ternate and Isabel Milan from Nursing.