CAPE GIRARDEAU (WSIL) -- An ambulance service in Cape Girardeau could soon make a significant difference for heart attack patients.
"What a cardiac monitor actually does, is it looks at the electrical activity in your heart, and that gives us an idea of how the heart is functioning."
Christina Degenhardt is a paramedic at Cape County Private Ambulance Service; a local service that will be the first in Missouri to replace aging cardiac monitors with a new, life saving, technology.
"I've been here almost 11 years so we've had them at least 11 years."
The outgoing monitors weren't just old, they were heavy, and clunky. The upgraded units will be more capable, and versatile; coming in two separate pieces.
"They're smaller, they're divided into two pieces, so instead of everything being in one, there's the cardiac monitor in the one piece and the other one is a smaller defibrillator."
A defibrillator with basic cardiac monitoring capabilities that can be used separately from a more elaborate cardiac monitor, means not only can they drop even more weight, they can also monitor two separate patients in the back of one ambulance.
What's more, is that the dedicated cardiac monitor can actually transmit data to a nearby hospital in real time.
"They can talk to us, they can tell us what treatments they'd like us to start right away, because we do have some cardiac drugs that we can start giving the patient. And, instead of stopping in the E.R., we can go directly to the floor, the cath lab, where you would get your final treatment for that. So it takes, it could cut off an hour. So they could be getting treatment even an hour sooner than what they were, so that's less damage to the heart, better outcomes for the patient."
Degenhardt says until last year, the new monitors have been limited to military use. She says owner, Dr. John Russel was the first to bring the technology to their region, because he believes it's a valuable life saving technology.
"Before he does anything, he researches what is the best way to do anything, and these were the best that he could see. They fill the need, and he felt like he could provide the best care possible to the community with these new monitors."
Paramedics say the new monitors won't enter rotation right away, as it will take some prep time to utilize all of their functions. When they do, the residents of Cape Girardeau County will be some of the first in the nation to see them.
