American Heart Association's Mission Lifeline

By Rebecca Nordquist Friday, 19 February 2010

Joyce Leatherwood calls herself a preacher—practically a fundamentalist, she says—for spreading the word on women’s heart attack symptoms. That’s because on New Year’s Eve in 2008 she mistook a STEMI heart attack—the most dangerous kind because of blockage of a major blood vessel—for indigestion.

She was unaware that most people have a 90-minute window to undergo treatment before it becomes deadly. Almost seven hours passed between the onset of Leatherwood’s first symptoms and her emergency helicopter flight to an Austin hospital.

“When I was conscious again [after the angioplasty], I asked Dr. Z, ‘How did this happen to me?’ He smiled and said, ‘Just lucky, I guess,’” said 56-year-old Leatherwood, whose doctor was “her hero,” Frank Zidar of the Heart Hospital of Austin.

Mission Lifeline, one of the American Heart Association’s newest initiatives, targets potential STEMI (or ST segment elevation myocardial infarction) victims like Leatherwood and educates them on symptoms—men’s and women’s—and when to call 911. The program also helps improve emergency medical services and establishes the protocol for diagnosis, treatment and where to take the patient—because not all hospitals are STEMI receiving.

“This is a culmination of a lot of individual efforts and organizations’ efforts to change the landscape in the [11] counties we serve to develop uniformity of how we take care of a STEMI patient from the time they recognize their symptoms to getting treatment in an efficient way,” said Dr. Robert Wozniak of Cardiovascular Specialists of Texas and co-chair of Mission Lifeline’s Capital Area Trauma Regional Advisory Council, formed in June 2009.

In addition to Wozniak, more than 90 area professionals serve on the council, including co-chair Zidar and representatives from the Seton Family of Hospitals and St. David’s HealthCare. And the collaboration between hospital groups like Seton and St. David’s—which he deems “fierce competitors” outside of Mission Lifeline—is not lost on Wozniak, who’s affiliated with St. David’s in north Austin and Round Rock.

“We’re getting rid of operating independently in a silo for a diagnosis for the No. 1 killer of men and women,” he said. “We’re going to say collectively this is a problem, and we’re going to tackle it as one team.”

While participation from healthcare professionals and hospitals is crucial to Mission Lifeline’s success, Wozniak noted there is room for patient education, legislative efforts and an opportunity for people with other expertise to get involved.

“You’re doing something that’s going to have a major impact for a long time,” he said. “There are plenty of people who could make a difference.”

For additional information visit www.americanheart.org/missionlifeline