The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has issued draft clinical guideline on managing acute heart attacks for public consultation.
Mechanical techniques have replaced other treatment types, such as drugs to break down blood clots, to improve outcomes by restoring an adequate coronary blood flow as quickly as possible during the acute phase of severe types of heart attacks.
It is estimated that 95% of the population in England and Wales are now covered by these mechanical techniques.
NICE stated: "The timeliness of these mechanical techniques is a crucial factor in improving outcomes successfully since nearly half of potentially salvageable heart muscle is lost within one hour of the coronary artery being blocked, and two-thirds are lost within three hours.
"The timeliness therefore forms a key part of this draft guideline so commissioners and those delivering services for people with severe heart attacks can plan their configuration in such a way that outcomes are optimal."
The guideline also covers improving outcomes for the minority of people still receiving other treatment types.
Professor Mark Baker, director of the centre for clinical practice at NICE, said: "The guideline development group has carefully weighed all the current evidence and have come up with a set of recommendations that have at their core, the need to ensure that there should be a single pathway for people that should work consistently and be reproducible for all.
"A great deal has been done to improve outcomes for people who have had an acute heart attack; this guideline identifies how outcomes can be improved even further."
The draft guideline recommends that all people with acute severe heart attacks are immediately assessed for their eligibility for mechanical techniques such as coronary reperfusion therapy.
Other recommendations include; not using level of consciousness after cardiac arrest caused by suspected acute heart attack to determine whether a person is eligible for certain treatments; and offering more traditional treatments to people with acute heart attacks within 12 hours of onset of symptoms, if newer mechanical techniques cannot be delivered within 120 minutes of the time when these other treatments could have been given.
The guidance also stated there must be an awareness that outcomes of mechanical technique treatments were "strongly related" to how quickly the treatment was delivered, which can be influenced by the number of procedures carried out by the centre.
Stakeholders have until 22 March 2013 to comment on the recommendations in the draft guideline.
Organisations can register as stakeholders at any time during the development of the guideline; comments must be submitted through the NICE website.
The incidence of in-hospital mortality after acute coronary syndromes has fallen from 20% in the early 1980s to 5% now, NICE reported.
