When you're wheeled into the emergency department at CAMC with chest pains, you want to be treated as quickly as possible. Previously, doctors had to run lab tests that would take up to 2 hours to get results. But, the rapid bedside marker provides the same information within 20 minutes. A small blood sample is put into the compartment called a well. The results register as positive or negative.
Doctors can then give patients medication and therapy sooner.
Time is muscle. A positive reading indicates a patient has suffered a heart attack. But this is a very significant tool enabling us to manage patients more appropriately and in a much more rapid fashion. If he continues to have pain, we'll have to give him some morphine sulfate and check his EKG and see how he's doing. Patients are either admitted to the hospital for further testing, or treated and sent home.