Does Inclusion of Emergency Medicine (EM) Residents in ECG Screening for STEMI Change the Time to Catheterization Lab Activation?

Background: Emergency medicine physicians must rapidly obtain and interpret an electrocardiogram (ECG) to quickly identify life-threatening cardiac emergencies such as ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Although ECG interpretation is a critical component of residency education, few high-powered studies exploring the accuracy of resident ECG interpretation exist.

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate whether or not the inclusion of Third Year Emergency Medicine Resident ECG interpretations is noninferior to attending-only ECG interpretations in regard to time to STEMI activation.