Doctors at KEM Hospital have turned to the most ubiquitous personal technology - the smartphone - to speed up diagnosis of patients with suspected heart complications.They have started using the popular smartphone messenger ‘WhatsApp’ to send pictures of patients’ electrocardiograms (ECG) to each other for a quick review, saving time spent on reaching the emergency ward and checking the actual report.The approach enables them to begin the treatment of a person who has suffered a heart attack within the crucial golden hour, the period when emergency care is most likely to be successful. Delay in proper diagnosis and treatment during this period results in amajority of cardiac fatalities.In fact, over 60 per cent of patients who have suffered a heart attack reach the hospital way beyond the golden hour, the average being about five hours. So every moment they spend waiting for the doctor to arrive and study their ECG increases the risks.“The moment a patient walks in here complaining of chest pain or any other related problem, a specialist takes out an ECG and sends the image to the doctors on hand,” said Dr Prafulla Kerkar, head of KEM’s cardiology department. “We, in fact, have a WhatsApp group where the experts in our department are signed in.”Already, 250 heart patients have benefited from the new report-sharing approach at KEM. “It is like a ‘transtelephonic’ use of the smart phone to read the ECG of a patient in need of emergency care,” said Kerkar, who came up with the idea of sharing reports on WhatsApp.In the West, a trans-telephonic electrocardiogram is recorded while the patient is on the way to the hospital in an ambulance, and sent to experts over the phone using a special monitor.At KEM, however, a doctor designated as a ‘chest pain registrar’ clicks a photograph of the ECG and puts it up on the cardiology department’s WhatsApp group, ‘ACS Care’. (ACS stands for acute coronary syndrome.)Any of the four senior doctors in the group quickly reviews the ECG and suggests the line of treatment. Dr Kerkar and Dr Milind Nadkar, head of KEM’s emergency medical services, are among them. “This cuts the time of moving the patient around or waiting for the senior doctor to arrive. It also helps us give a senior consultant-level care by keeping a junior doctor on duty,” Dr Kerkar said.The chest pain registrar, who is currently pursuing cardiology as his specialty, may not always need a second opinion from the seniors, but often there are cases in which expert advice helps. “The most important thing is to be able to diagnose a heart attack on the ECG,” said Dr Kerkar. “However the ECG may not always indicate the same. Depending on the diagnosis, the patient may be immediately put on a clot buster therapy, sent to the cathlab for a primary angioplasty or be asked to be kept under observation.”The aim of the new initiative at KEM is to reduce the ‘door-to-needle’ time, or the time when the patient walks into the hospital door and eventually gets treatment.“A majority of our patients come from far off suburbs,” said Dr Kerkar. “In most cases, the golden hour is lost. By this system, we are trying to ensure there is no further loss of time.”