Code STEMI

In a place where there are 824,000 people and 77,000 square miles of land, south Dakota has some challenges when it comes to providing timely and adequate care for STEMI patients.

“It’s a lot easier to determine going from normal to abnormal than to determine abnormal to more abnormal.” Michael Hibbard, M.D. talks about the importance of technology in maximizing the benefit of the prehospital 12-lead ECG. Many patients have baseline abnormalities such as bundle branch blocks, conduction defects, or persistent ST-elevation from previous heart attacks. [...]

We ran into interventional cardiologist Michael Hibbard, M.D. at dinner and he gave us a few minutes of his time to talk about politics, change, technology and opportunities to build and improve regional systems of care. “Change is always difficult. Change will be there, though. It’s not the strongest that survive. It’s the people who [...]

Our first morning of filming is now complete and my mind is racing! I’m not sure what I expected when I first heard about the eEmergency system and the eICU at Avera McKennan but what we saw was astounding! Of course we’re here to find out how they manage rural patients in South Dakota but [...]