[Out-of-hospital management of acute coronary syndromes]

Abstract

Background: In Europe, the biological and healthcare costs of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are extremely high. For this reason, the Emergency Medical Service of the Lombardy Region (AREU Lombardy) has defined a "mission" that can partly resolve this issue, through an accurately balanced clinical/organizational plan of territorial medical rescue.

Methods: The territorial and housing complexity of the Region has conditioned the recent strategic choices, that have foreseen the alignment to Europe with the introduction of the 1st level Public Safety Answering Point (NUE 1.1.2.), for the exact localization of the event, and its subsequent management by the Operations Centers of the Emergency Medical System with the dispatch of the most suitable rescue vehicles, all of which are capable of carrying out a 12-lead ECG for cardiology diagnostics. Furthermore, in order to meet the European quality requirements, all the rescuers are specifically trained to treat ACS, the healthcare professionals employed in the rescue are all "specialists", and a standard pharmacological treatment is administered prior to arrival at the hospital.

Results: As a result of this rescue organization, 78 425 12-lead ECGs were performed in Lombardy in 2018, subsequent to emergency calls; of the 52 528 cases of chest pain, the potential ACSs detected in the area were 41 220, of which 4980 confirmed in the emergency departments through the subsequent refined instrumental and laboratory diagnostics. The diagnoses of ST-elevation myocardial infarction at the territorial point of care were 1833, and all the events were pharmacologically pretreated in the territorial setting, according to the AREU procedure.

Conclusions: In Lombardy, the out-of-hospital management of ACS is strictly aligned with the standards of the Ministerial Decree no. 70 of 2015 and follows a well-defined track, aimed at meeting the current quality goals and the performance indicators of this pathology. This track surely needs to be improved through the concerted effort by all the healthcare stakeholders in order to univocally define the outcome indicators, which at present are not yet perfectly defined.