EHAC Early Heart Attack Care Article: EHAC Expansion to Include Hospital Employees

EHAC Expansion Includes Hospital Employees

Dr. Ray Bahr is more than just the Founder of ACC Accreditation Services. His Early Heart Attack Care program is a benchmark of community outreach and education for heart disease.

(This article was originally published in 2012 and has been updated to reflect the 2018 EHAC Oath Form)

Hospital employees provide a very important role in the delivery of medical care within their community. No where is this more important than heart attack care. More heart attack deaths occur in the community than within hospital walls.

Hospital employees bridge the gap within the community in order to reduce the time from symptom onset until the patient receives medical care.

How does this occur? First, by becoming trained in Early Heart Attack Care (EHAC) - passing the exam and taking the oath that they will not leave a person who is experiencing the onset of symptoms until they arrival at the hospital.

Second, by understanding that their hospital has a chest pain center that provides a user friendly and cost-effective pathway for checking out patients with these mild chest pain symptoms.

How does this work to save lives? Think about it! Hospital employees spend part of their day as well as weekend days outside of the hospital. They can utilize their EHAC knowledge within their communities - schools, groups, gyms, churches - in order to spread the message that EHAC saves lives!

Now, it is important to talk about the expansion of the EHAC program where the EHAC education is provided not only on the Internet, but also now in classroom lectures through the EHAC syllabus.

When EHAC is taught by an instructor, it is important to keep a roster of attendees with addresses and submit via e-mail so that the attendees can be counted on the Deputy Heart Attack website. You can download the pdf from the Deputy Heart Attack website.

Recently, we also requested that hospitals add the EHAC educational module to their CPR classes. 500 Free Deputy Badges were offered to the first 200 hospitals that did this. So far, the response has been great because 47 hospitals have come forth to do so. We encourage other chest pain centers to join with us in accomplishing our goal of 200 hospitals. Help us to accomplish this mission.

Finally, one can not leave this subject without acknowledging the outstanding role of the Cardiac Nurses in helping to provide Early Heart Attack Care. Witness the accomplishments of Holly Hill, Director of Cardiac Services at Tri Star Summit Medical Center in Hermatage,TN. She created a hospital policy that outlines the elements of EHAC training within her hospital in order to educate others that a life could be by seeing the signs and getting immediate medical care!

The employee training policy she established included training different groups -

New employee orientation
Basic Life Support classes
Advanced Life Support classes
Community health fairs, screening and other events
Waiting Room Coordinator Orientation
Annually for Summit Medical Center Employees
Elementary and High Schools
Emergency Medical Services Dispatch personnel
Physician Offices

But she took it a step further because she encouraged ALL employees to become an ambassador of EHAC and provided special recognition to those that agreed to join the mission! (Thanks to Kay Styer Holmes, RN, our Accreditation Review Specialist who gave us this information)

Best of luck in saving a life!
Raymond D.Bahr MD.

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