Heart and Vascular Institute offers high-level, community-based care
Laura Fiaccato, Director of Cardiac Catheterization at St. Alexius Medical Center with Birgitta Kuehn the Institute's Administrative Director and Anne Marie Herlehy, Administrative Director of Perioperative and Cardiac Services at Alexian Brothers Medical Center
People often assume that to receive the best in heart and vascular care, they must look outside their community. In recent years, the Alexian Brothers Heart and Vascular Institute has upended this conventional wisdom, earning accolades for its advanced treatments and quality of care. “We have an exceptionally strong, dedicated and innovative heart and vascular program,” says Birgitta Kuehn, the institute’s Administrative Director. “We can deliver state-of-the-art care beyond what is being delivered at academic centers in Chicagoland and elsewhere.”
From community wellness and preventive care to state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging, catheter-based and surgical interventions, and cardiac rehabilitation, the institute offers a comprehensive, integrated and easily accessible continuum of care through the staffs and facilities of Alexian Brothers Hospital Network (ABHN). “People don’t have to go anyplace else, because we do it all very well and our quality scores support it,” Kuehn says. The Joint Commission has awarded its prestigious Gold Seal of Approval™ to Alexian Brothers Medical Center (ABMC) in Elk Grove Village, Ill., and St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, Ill., recognizing their commitment to excellence in the treatment of heart failure and heart attacks. This recognition demonstrates that the hospitals have met the highest national standards for safety and quality of care.
Both hospitals earned high grades for overall heart-attack and heart-failure care in the new Illinois Hospital Report Card and Consumer Guide to Health Care. Medicare Hospital Quality Compare ranks both hospitals among the top 10 in Illinois in “door-to-balloon” time, an important measure of effectiveness in cardiac intervention. The phrase refers to the interval between a heart-attack patient’s arrival at a hospital and a doctor’s inflation of a tiny balloon in a coronary artery. ABHN also has been selected to serve as the only physician training site for carotid artery stenting in Illinois.
BlueCross BlueShield lists ABMC among its Blue Distinction Centers for Cardiac Care. The designation represents a commitment to quality care that results in better overall outcomes for cardiac patients. In addition, ABMC’s Cardiovascular Critical Care Department has earned the Beacon Award for Critical Care Excellence from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.
Under Kuehn’s leadership, the institute is working to build upon its accomplishments through strategies that emphasize continued innovation and collaboration. The institute and the Alexian Brothers Neurosciences Institute work closely together in recognizing the links between vascular disease and stroke.
A key focus is expanding the institute’s extensive array of minimally invasive endovascular interventions, which already includes advanced procedures in which doctors remove plaque from arteries and use stents to repair abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms and structural heart defects without surgery. “Our first choice is always to look more toward a minimally invasive approach than toward open surgery,” says than 25 years of experience in cardiovascular services, including clinical and administrative roles. “We pride ourselves on having a robust endovascular program.”
The institute recently has augmented the program with transradial catheterization, a procedure in which doctors access a patient’s heart through a catheter inserted into a small wrist incision instead of through the femoral artery in the groin. Without a groin wound, patients can walk and can leave the hospital faster. Alexian Brothers doctors also have started using the Impella, a temporary, catheter-based cardiac assist device that helps a diseased heart pump blood while doctors work to fix it during complex catheterization procedures. If necessary, the Impella also can assist a patient’s heart for days afterward. The institute was the first non-academic center in Illinois to use the Impella and the first in Illinois and Wisconsin to standardize Impella treatment across all of its catheterization laboratories. The institute has completed the most Impella cases of any non-academic institution in Illinois or Wisconsin. “The Impella has allowed us to reduce the risk of very complex interventions in patients with few, if any, other options,” Kuehn says.
Another capability added recently is the laser extraction and replacement of damaged or malfunctioning pacemaker lead wires. This procedure has enhanced the institute’s formidable lineup of electrophysiology services, which already featured implantation of a wide array of pacemakers, cardioverter-defibrillator implantation, cardiac resynchronization therapy, and radiofrequency catheter ablation for supraventricular and ventricular tachycardia, atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation. The institute’s electrophysiology services include the Wolf Mini-maze a closed chest, minimally invasive surgical procedure for atrial fibrillation patients who have not responded well to medical therapy. The institute has earned a reputation for surgical excellence, with highly regarded programs for heart-valve replacement surgery and aortic arch surgery, which is “an exceptionally difficult surgery,” Kuehn says.
While providing the latest treatments, the institute wants to collaborate with community organizations, primary-care physicians and other Alexian Brothers institutes and programs to help people avoid such diseases by developing healthy lifestyles at a young age, Kuehn says. “We’re saying, ‘This partnership we have with you is for life. First of all, it’s to keep you well. But if you need us for your heart and vascular health, we are here for you.’”
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