Tech helps hosps slash time to start critical treatment
Times of India | 13 December 2024
Kolkata: The time taken to attend to critically ill patients and the initiation of treatment has reduced considerably in Kolkata, thanks to bolstered emergency care, including the use of high-end equipment and on-the-spot tests, followed by a quick transfer to wards and ICUs, hospitals said. The average time taken to start treatment once the patient reaches the hospital has gone down from one-two hours to less than 10 minutes, and the number of casualties has gone down considerably over the last few years because of , commencement of core treatment at the emergency itself.
This has particularly helped patients from the city's northern and southern fringes, which are not located close to hospitals. Charnock Hospital, which introduced ECMO services last week, and a second Cath Lab, is a case in point. "It is a significant milestone in critical and cardiac care for New Town and its surrounding areas, from where it takes more than an hour to reach a hospital like ours. With this equipment and the facility of all major diagnostic tests extended to the emergency, actual treatment starts immediately, and merely continues at the ward or the ICU," said Charnock MD Prashant Sharma.
At Peerless Hospital, which gets scores of patients from the city's southern fringes, the emergency has 20 beds, including eight ITU beds armed with ventilators. All cardiac, neurological, and trauma patients are first treated here, the necessary tests done, and then they are shifted to the ICU or Cath Lab. "Pre-Covid, it would take 45 minutes to an hour for a patient to be assessed and taken in for treatment. This often meant losing the ‘golden hour'. But now tests and treatment start within a minute. Once the patient has been primarily assessed, treatment starts. The emergency is no longer a gateway but the first point of treatment," said Peerless CEO Sudipta Mitra.
Like several other hospitals, Peerless uses transportable ventilators for ferrying patients to ICUs. In times of a bed crisis, patients are treated at the emergency for days till a vacancy occurs. Ruby General Hospital, which gets more than 40 critically ill patients at the emergency per day, does a comprehensive assessment of each and chalks out an initial course of treatment with help from its critical-care team. "This is especially true for cardiac, neurological, and trauma patients who need several tests and a quick transfer to the OT or Cath Lab. We introduced a ‘green corridor system' for these patients to prevent wasting even a second. Other than the necessary emergency equipment, we introduced an arterial blood gas analyser (ABG) for quick results of respiratory patients. The idea is to reduce waiting time to less than a minute and begin core treatment as early as possible," said Subhashis Datta, Ruby GM – operations.
Charnock Hospital is among the few close to New Town to provide ECMO services, filling a vital gap in the area's healthcare. Its second Cath Lab, equipped with advanced technology, like HD IVUS, FFR/DFR, and ROTAPRO, enhances the hospital's capacity to perform life-saving cardiac procedures, such as angiograms and angioplasties. "With over 400 cases annually and zero on-table mortality, the hospital's cardiology department will be further bolstered by these. Soon, we will have all these services extended to the emergency as well. It is now a full-fledged treating unit and not just an entry point," said Charnock emergency head Nishant Agarwal.
With multiple ECMOs, Manipal Hospital has reduced its emergency attendance time to zero.
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