A new pilot project hopes to improve the chances of recovery for people who have had a heart attack in the Kamloops area.

It is called the Collaborative Heart Attack Management Program or CHAMP, and it’s the first of its kind in B.C..

BC EHS Advance Care Paramedic Renee Gilroy says paramedics will be trained to care for patients wherever they have a heart attack.

“The ability to recognize patients that are having an acute heart attack and being able to deliver them thrombolytic or clot busting medication earlier will decrease their instance of hospital admission as well as damage to their heart.”

She says if paramedics flag a person as a potential heart attack victim, an ECG will be done, and if is positive for a STEMI (ST-Elevation-Myocardial-Infarct) heart attack, that data will be sent to cardiologists at Royal Inland Hospital. Those cardiologists will call the paramedics, who will then determine if the patient qualifies for treatment under the CHAMP protocol.

“If so, they will be treated right where they are,” Gilroy said. “This will decrease the time that it would have taken to take the patient to the hospital and for them to be seen by a emergency physician. Out goal is less that 30 minutes from arriving at patient side for them to receive this medication.”

Interior Medical Director Dr. Anders Ganstal says post treatment about 30 per cent of people will have no evidence of having had that heart attack.

If we give this medication within 60 minutes, we have a large opportunity to decrease bad outcomes from having a heart attack to the point that 30 per cent of these will have no evidence of having had a heart attack, and that’s the real exciting part of this is that patients will have better outcomes, shorter stays in the hospital, and they’ll return to work and so forth.”

Gilroy noted the program, has been in Alberta for a decade, adding that cardiologists at RIH had been pushing for this program.

“Really it was them that came up with this trial and mirrored the Alberta project,” Gilroy said. “Kamloops has a large rural population and our transport times can be quite long, so it really is a perfect group or area for this to be taking place in.”

He says there have already been a few calls since it launched, although none of the patients qualified for the CHAMP protocol.

“It’s a very strict protocol because its in the trial phase,” noted Ganstal. “We want to do this right, and we want to do what’s best for the patients and improve care, by making sure we’re following the standard of care to transport them to the emergency department and provide full therapy regardless of what their diagnosis is.”

The pilot project began in September, and it is expected to go on for about nine months before potentially being expanded across the province.