For the third year in a row, Murrysville Medic One officials will receive the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline Gold Plus Award for meeting high benchmarks when it comes to treating heart-attack victims.
The Mission: Lifeline awards focus on STEMI or “ST elevation myocardial infarction,” cases — most commonly, heart attacks.
Fewer than 2% of EMS agencies across the country have achieved Mission Lifeline’s “Gold Plus” status, which is awarded based on meeting certain benchmarks.
“You’re the elite of the elite,” AHA Quality Senior Director Alex Kuhn told Medic One administrators and staff when presenting the award in 2018.
One benchmark is that a patient should be hooked up to an EKG within 10 minutes after medics arrive. A second benchmark involves the hospitals that receive patients: Within 90 minutes of the first medical contact, a patient should be in a hospital heart catheter lab.
In Pennsylvania, 76 agencies will receive Mission: Lifeline awards in 2019, with 31 of them attaining the AHA’s Gold Plus Award.
The award will be presented 5 p.m. July 23 at the Medic One center on Sardis Road.
