By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Heart patients could get faster emergency treatment thanks to a Central Maine Medical Center training program.

United Ambulance paramedics can now diagnose patients for emergency angioplasties while on their way to the hospital, according to hospital and ambulance officials.

That means a paramedic in the field can make the call to divert a patient to CMMC, cutting the amount of time before treatment by 90 minutes.

“The longer a patient waits, the more heart muscle can die,” said Dr. William Phillips, director of diagnostic and interventional cardiology. “In this business, time means muscle.”

Angioplasty involves inserting and inflating a tiny balloon into a clogged artery in an effort to break up the clog. CMMC and Maine Medical Center in Portland both offer emergency angioplasties as treatment for heart attacks. CMMC is the first Maine hospital to qualify paramedics to call for angioplasties.

The diagnosis depends on a 12-lead electrocardiograph, a machine that measures electrical current in the heart in 12 different places. Many Maine ambulance services have the machines, but not the training to read them, said Dr. Kevin Kendall, CMMC’s Emergency Medical Services director.

Those paramedics can make a printout of an electrocardiogram and give it to a doctor when the patient gets to the hospital. The doctor decides if an emergency angioplasty is necessary – which could mean another trip in the ambulance.

But qualified United paramedics now can make that call themselves, based on the EKG results. They can call CMMC directly and have staff get ready for angioplasty treatment.

That might not mean much during normal business hours, when the hospital’s catheterization lab is staffed and operating, Kendall said. But it’s crucial late at night when the lab is closed and most of the staff has gone home.

“The big problem for us is time,” Phillips said. “We have the ability to stop a heart attack in its tracks if we move quickly and stop heart muscle from dying.”

Phillips said it takes his staff of four – a doctor, two nurses and a technician – about 90 minutes to get to the hospital and set up the lab for treatment.

Twenty United paramedics have been trained to read the EKGs, and there are plans to train others who serve the communities of Lisbon, Poland and Turner.

“That would be the second phase,” Kendall said. He’s also working with emergency services in Rumford.