Saving heart attack patients in the middle of the night (USA)

When Joyce Moss recently arrived at Loyola University Hospital, ILL, with a life-threatening heart attack, it took just 42 minutes to perform an emergency balloon angioplasty. The procedure opened up an artery that was 100 percent blocked. "There was no damage to the heart because of how quick they were," said Moss, 56, of Berwyn. "I feel good." To further improve its emergency angioplasty times, Loyola will become the first hospital in Illinois to staff a Heart Attack Rapid Response Team (HARRT) at the hospital 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The HARRT program includes board-certified and highly-experienced interventional cardiologists, nurses and technicians. Most hospitals do not have such personnel on site during nights and weekends. Thus, precious time is lost when the team has to be called in from home. This is especially true when staffers are delayed by snow storms or other bad weather. - Physorg.com