In early September, 4 West had a patient seriously ill with respiratory and renal issues. Early one morning, an EKG was performed; and the technician brought the results to the patient’s nurse, who quickly noticed an elevated ST. She alerted the patient’s cardiologist immediately. The patient was taken to the Cath Lab as a STEMI.

Both the technician and the patient’s nurse recognized the urgency of the situation and were extremely helpful in getting the patient down to the Cath Lab as quickly as possible.

STEMI patients are extremely sick, and time is very important as we have 80 minutes from recognition to reperfusion. This patient didn’t have the usual signs of heart attack – no pain or other symptoms because he was so ill. It would have been easy to stick the EKG in the chart without looking at it and wait until the doctor saw it later in the day. This nurse took the time to look at the EKG to see what was going on with her patient. She recognized a problem and acted quickly.

October’s DAISY Award winner is Tiffany Zucchi.