KELLOGG — Shoshone Medical Center staff hope to stop hearts from skipping a beat with the addition of new equipment to their toolkit. Three new hospital-grade defibrillators arrived at the end of 2023, to help the hospital usher the new year with updated gear.

Adilynn Flanagan, executive director of the Shoshone Medical Center Foundation, said the automatic external defibrillators cost about $20,000 each. After a year with the new defibrillators as the goal, about $40,000 in funds from the county in addition to the foundation's efforts pushed the hospital over the financial finish line.

“We partner together so when the hospital needs to receive money, we receive it on their behalf. When they say 'we need this equipment, we need this service' and we go, 'Great, we’ll raise the money,’” Flanagan said.

In 2023, the foundation’s Heart Ball raised about $21,000 toward the cost of the new equipment.

The new hospital-grade defibrillators will give medical staff the ability to provide stationary and portable cardiac monitoring with a screen showing the patient’s cardiac rhythm in real time, determine which kind of abnormal heart rhythm a patient has and defibrillate with a manually set level of electricity for the patient’s specific condition, size and age.

Alexander S. Whelan is the emergency medicine medical director for Shoshone Medical Center and said that having equipment like the updated models will provide a critical impact on the ability to save lives. 

“Defibrillators like the ones that have been donated to us at SMC are the single most useful tool for emergent cardiac conditions in the emergency department. These machines can function to instantaneously normalize a potentially lethal heart rhythm or even restart the heart when it has stopped beating during a heart attack,” Whelan said.