My husband fainted at home and needed stitches to close a gash on his head from falling against the bathroom sink. The prevailing thinking in the ED was that he probably fainted due to dehydration, but the ED physician wanted to ensure that the reason for the faint wasn’t a cardiac event. That could be determined by interrogating his implanted defibrillator (ICD), a process that required an Abbott Merlin Transmitter. However, we were told he would need to be transferred to McCandless for that because the transmitter and an electrophysiologist to interpret the interrogation data were in McCandless.

Simply transferring him to McCandless could take any length of time. After we had been in the ED for about 13 hours, Kirsten, who had recently come on duty, recalled that the Cranberry location did, indeed, have an Abbott Merlin Transmitter. She had received training on the device once during an in-service and was willing to try to use the Cranberry device to interrogate my husband’s defibrillator. If she could do that, the data would be sent automatically to the Abbott Merlin Network where a doctor could interpret it and respond whether my husband had had a cardiac event or not. Maybe he didn’t need to go to McCandless. It took two tries before Kirsten and an assisting person could successfully interrogate the device in the Cranberry ED. Within minutes, we learned that my husband did not have a cardiac incident, he fainted, but it wasn’t because of a problem with his heart.

Because of Kirsten’s persistence, determination, and problem-solving, he was able to be released immediately. His stay was limited to 15 hours rather than days, therefore freeing up a bed in the Cranberry ED, shortening his stay by who knows how long, and saving us the expense of a patient transfer and additional time in the hospital. Perhaps even more important, we learned that his heart is okay much sooner than we had expected.

We’re very grateful for ALL the exceptional, dedicated professionals we encountered during our visit. We have no complaints at all and feel very fortunate to live less than 10 minutes away from the Cranberry facility. My husband received prompt, thorough, well-informed health care. Every single person involved with his care, from the moment we walked in the door until we left, treated us both with compassion, dignity, and respect. But we’d like Kirsten to receive recognition for “thinking outside the box” and getting the results much sooner than we had hoped.