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Community Ambulance Service of Minot has earned the American Heart Association’s highest recognition for providing first-rate care to people with severe heart attack.

CAS, a service of Trinity Health, received the Mission: Lifeline Gold Plus Award, an advanced level of recognition that acknowledges compliance with AHA’s “Get With The Guidelines” Quality Measures. Community Ambulance was able to demonstrate at least 75% compliance for 12 consecutive months for the required number of quality measures to earn the Gold Plus honor.

“We are grateful to be recognized by the American Heart Association and very proud of our team’s efforts to provide optimal care to cardiac patients,” said Amy Thomas, director of Trinity Health’s Transport Services. “The Mission: Lifeline program puts proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis, so patients have the best possible chance of survival.”

Each year, more than 250,000 people experience a STEMI, or ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction, a type of heart attack caused by blockage of blood flow to the heart, requiring timely treatment. To prevent death or severe heart damage, blood flow must be restored as quickly as possible through interventional cardiology or clot-busting medication.

“Since ambulance crew members are often the first medical point of contact, they can shave precious minutes of lifesaving treatment time by activating the emergency response system that alerts cardiac centers like Trinity Hospital,” Thomas said.

CAS was an early proponent of equipping paramedics with 12-lead EKG, a move that has given them the ability to transmit a patient’s cardiac data from the field to a hospital with a cardiac catheterization lab, which enables doctors and heart teams to identify STEMI and activate protocols without delay.