2014/15 University Hospital Foundation Annual Report: Supporting Worl | Page 17

Life-saving program began with
donor-funded research
With a $225,000 seed grant from the University Hospital
Foundation, community support played a critical role in
enabling researchers to conduct initial studies, and leverage
their findings into additional funding that eventually led to a
life-saving, and revolutionary, approach to providing care to
heart attack patients.

Watch & Learn
Debbra Robertson
shares her story of how
VHR saved her life.

Before the Vital Heart Response (VHR) system was developed by
cardiologists and researchers at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute,
people living in Edmonton and northern Alberta who believed they were
having a heart attack would have to wait until they arrived at the hospital
before accurate diagnosis and treatment could occur. And hope it wasn’t
too late.
VHR has changed that approach. Today, when paramedics arrive on scene,
they perform an electrocardiogram (ECG, a test that checks for problems
with the electrical activity of the heart) on the patient. The results are relayed
to a cardiologist at the 5