Treatment for people who suffer from heart attack usually involves nine critical steps. Thus, if you are a nurse, medic or a caregiver, then you need to what is bls certification as it is one of the most basic knowledge for treating heart attacks.

A new study has reported that missing any of these steps can have far-reaching consequences on the patients and can in fact increase their risk of dying from the condition.

This was according to the report given by researchers working in the UK who noted that if a patient missed a certain treatment in the early steps like an electrocardiogram within few hours after the symptoms have developed, the likelihood of those patients missing other steps later on in their care was very high. The researchers were also quick to note that it is possible to improve the outcomes of those patients having a heart attack if they followed all the critical nine steps required in the treatment.

Dr. Chris Gale, who led the study, noted that the most serious tragedy is that it is possible to avoid all these deaths. A very clear relationship exists between being able to offer timely and comprehensive care and treatment with an improved chance of surviving a heart attack.

Critical steps for heart attack treatment

The researchers highlighted the nine most important steps that can aid in treating a heart attack and these steps are as follows:

  1. After the symptoms develop, an electrocardiogram should be availed within the first few hours.
  2. Aspirin to be used immediately
  3. Reperfusion which aims at restoring flow of blood to the heart
  4. When being discharged from the hospital, an aspirin prescription should be given
  5. Four heart medications should be used timely which include ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, and statins and beta-blockers.
  6. After being discharged from health care, a referral should be given for cardiac rehabilitation.

Statistics for heart attack patients

If any of these treatments highlighted here above is missed, it can result in very fatal consequences for people having a heart attack. When the researchers reviewed one of the country’s largest registries for quality care and heart attack outcomes, they found that about 50% of the 31000 patients of heart attack had been discharged from hospital from January 2007 to December 2010 but never received all the nine critical steps highlighted here above.

Those hospitals having fewer beds that were specialist for patients of heart attack as well as those treating only a very small number of patients of heart attack were highly likely to miss a very critical aspect of treatment. The researchers noted that it was of paramount importance that professionals in the health care industry who catered for heart diseases be trained and made aware of the nine critical treatments to maximize the likelihood of maximizing the life of heart attack patients. Most of the guidelines recommended are in fact very straightforward but for one reason or the other, they aren’t being provided. Missing any of these care components increases the likelihood of the patient dying.