GUEST COMMENTARY: Heart attack patients need the ER, not STEMI Regional Centers

Extremely important to Missourians having the most serious heart attack, a STEMI (ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction), is the 2008 state law calling for Regional STEMI Centers, requiring “Patients who suffer a STEMI, as defined in section 190.100, shall be transported to a STEMI Center,” bypassing the local hospital and depriving you of the lifesaving and disability-reducing fibrinolysis (clotbuster) treatment available within 30 minutes at every ER. The purpose of the law is to deliver you to a large hospital with a cardiac catheterization laboratory (cath lab) for balloon coronary angioplasty.