Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Receives American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline Silver Plus Award for Heart Attack Care

July 13, 2023

Cheyenne, WY—Cheyenne Regional Medical Center has received the Mission: Lifeline^® STEMI Receiving Center Silver Plus Achievement Award for implementing rapid, research-based care for patients experiencing a type of severe heart attack known as an ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).

Each year about 285,000 people in the United States experience a STEMI. A STEMI is the most deadly type of heart attack, caused by a complete blockage of one of the main arteries supplying blood to the heart.

Hospitals designated as Mission: Lifeline receiving centers provide round-the-clock STEMI treatment. This support includes coordinating with a network of referring hospitals and emergency medical services to provide guideline-directed STEMI and NSTEMI care.

CRMC earned the silver plus recognition by meeting specific Mission: Lifeline criteria and standards of performance for the quick and appropriate treatment of patients having STEMI heart attacks.

“Cheyenne Regional Medical Center has the unique challenge of helping heart attack patients who may be arriving from a community 50 or more miles away. Over the past several years, we have worked with first responders and rural hospitals in our region to establish guidelines and protocols that help ensure heart attack patients are receiving the best and most appropriate heart attack treatments,” said Abdur Khan, MD, CRMC interventional cardiologist and medical director of cardiovascular care at CRMC.

“Care coordination is particularly important when someone experiences a STEMI heart attack, and American Heart Association guidelines call for specific actions in the hospital and following a hospital stay,” said James G. Jollis, MD, volunteer for the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^® – Coronary Artery Disease Systems of Care Advisory Work Group and cardiologist with The Christ Hospital Physicians – Heart & Vascular in Cincinnati. “Hospitals like Cheyenne Regional Medical Center are recognized for consistently supporting patients with science-based treatment and care coordination, ensuring the best opportunity for recovery.”

Mission: Lifeline is the American Heart Association’s national, community-based initiative to improve systems of care for patients experiencing STEMIs, non-ST elevation myocardial infarctions (NSTEMIs), strokes and out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. The program focuses on streamlining processes to speed the delivery of proper treatment for time-sensitive, neuro-cardiovascular diseases.