Besides providing critical emergency services around the clock, the emergency room at Citrus Valley Medical Center's Inter-Community Campus in Covina is a receiving center specifically for heart attack patients.
This ER has been designated by Los Angeles County as a ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) Receiving Center (SRC). Inter-Community is the only hospital in the East San Gabriel Valley with this designation.
When a heart attack strikes, every second counts. The risk of permanent damage increases the longer the artery remains blocked. The patients who are now immediately transported to Inter-Community will arrive at a state-of-the-art Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory more quickly than they would have before. The designation makes it possible for medical professionals to achieve the goal of opening a blocked heart artery within 90 minutes of when paramedics perform the first electrocardiogram (EKG) in the field.
