Heart Specialists Saving Lives with Cellphone and BlackBerry Technology The BlackBerry can be used for more than just business these days. In fact, in southern Ontario they are now being used to save lives.

BlackBerry-carrying specialists at St. Mary's Regional Cardiac Centre and Waterloo Region EMS can now receive crucial data from paramedics to determine if heart attack victims should be rushed in for life-saving angioplasty. It is thought this system is the first of its kind in Canada.

Specialists receive an electrocardiogram readout to their BlackBerry via a cellphone at the scene... and it all takes less than one minute. What a brilliant system.

The International benchmark for taking a heart-attack victim from home, and into the operating room to open an artery is currently at 90 minutes (door to balloon time). With this new system in place, the quickest time so far has been 36 minutes, and the average is 58 minutes.

To credit for the system are computer experts from the cardiac centre and Region of Waterloo. They came up with a way to transfer the data between their existing Bell Mobility technology (cellphones) and the BlackBerry.

In a game where every second counts, this new system is saving lives on a daily basis. Two big thumbs up from CrackBerry!

[ via SaultStar ]Â