Heart Attack Care

Heart attack, also called acute myocardial infarction (AMI or MI), is a life-threatening event caused by insufficient oxygen reaching the heart.

A heart attack happens when the arteries leading to the heart become blocked and the blood supply is slowed or stopped. When the heart muscle can’t get the oxygen and nutrients it needs, the part of the heart tissue that is affected may die.

The symptoms of a heart attack can include:

• chest pain (often described as a crushing, squeezing or burning pain in the center of the chest and may radiate to your arm or jaw)
• shortness of breath
• dizziness or faintness
• sweating
• nausea
• cold or clammy skin
• a gray or very ill appearance

Sometimes there may be no symptoms, especially if you have diabetes. Women sometimes have different symptoms, such as a different kind of chest pain and/or abdominal pain.

When a heart attack occurs, quick use of aspirin and other treatments can reduce damage to the heart and reduce the chance of death. The indicators in this section examine the initial care of heart attack patients and whether patients leave the hospital with medications known to be helpful after a heart attack.  Currently these numbers only include patients admitted to Mountain View Hospital with this diagnosis, even though we provide much of this care before transfer.  Most patients who are diagnosed with a heart attack are transferred to a center with cardiologists, such as St. Charles Medical Center in Bend , therefore the number of cases we report is very low. 

We are currently in a pilot program in Oregon to track heart attack care for the patients we transfer, and will add that data to this report as soon as it is available.

More information about heart health is available at:

• American Heart Association's website http://www.americanheart.org
• National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health website www.medlineplus.gov