Celeste Frangeskou, director of quality improvement for the American Heart Association, was in Temple on Thursday to present Scott & White Memorial Hospital with the American Heart Association’s Gold Performance Achievement Award in cardiac care and stroke care.
“The gold award is our highest honor,” Frangeskou said.
The American Heart Association’s Get With the Guidelines program was created to close the practice gap, with health care professionals putting to use proven procedures.
Millions of dollars are spent on research, but much of it doesn’t make it to the bedside, she said.
“Research that isn’t implemented helps no one,” Frangeskou said. “Research that isn’t consistently implemented doesn’t help all those in need of it.”
In cardiac care and stroke care there is a limited timeframe in which to provide optimum care.
A person having a stroke loses 36,000 nerve cells in a minute, said Dr. Richard Lenehan, chairman of the department of neurology at Scott & White.
To deliver the highest quality of care requires an integrated system that includes delivery to the ER and expertise in the ER, radiology, neurology and intensive care.
“Time is critical,” Lenehan said.
The older population will sometimes think if their face is sagging or there is weakness in a limb it will clear up, but it won’t, he said.
Everyone who has a stroke may not be a candidate for a clot buster, which is the best treatment if it’s administered in a timely fashion, Lenehan said. However, it’s also possible in some patients to retrieve a clot through the use of a coil.
New procedures are being developed and the use of stem cell treatments are a possibility down the road, but the best practice is prevention and if that fails, getting to the ER quickly is imperative, Lenehan said.
“We’d much rather prevent a person from having an event than having to manage it acutely,” he said.
The most important aspect of Scott & White is the primary care system because those are the medical personnel who direct the care to control hypertension and diabetes, and that goes a long way in preventing strokes, Lenehan said.
The purpose of the Get With the Guidelines initiative is to make sure proven therapies are rolled out so patients get the benefits, said Dr. Gregory Dehmer, director of the division of cardiology.
“This in not an award about who’s the best or who’s smarter, this is an award that we really seek after because it’s the very best thing to do for all of our patients,” he said.
Dehmer also announced that Scott & White has been named one of the nation’s 100 top hospitals for cardiovascular care for the ninth year in a row in the Thomson Reuters Healthcare 100 Top Hospitals Cardiovascular Benchmarks Awards list for 2008.
Scott & White is one of only two Texas hospitals recognized in the category of teaching hospitals with cardiovascular residency programs, and the only Texas hospital in that same category to rank in the top 100 cardiovascular programs for the ninth year in a row.
The Heart and Vascular Institute at Scott & White takes up about 90,000 square feet and is devoted to cardiovascular care.
On Thursday in one of the electrophysiology labs, Dr. Lynne Hung, associate program director, clinical cardiac electophysiology fellowship program, and Dr. Amy Woodrow, electophysiology fellow, were monitoring five catheters inside a patient’s heart, looking at electrical activity.
The 23-year-old patient, who has palpitations, was brought in to do an electophysiology study to determine where the abnormal rhythm was coming from, Hung said.
“We found it, but we’re now confirming it . . . we have to be very methodical,” she said.
To get rid of the palpitations, radio frequency energy is used, Dehmer said.
This technique, Dehmer said, was pioneered by Dr. Stephen Huang, director, section of cardiac electrophysiology and pacing at Scott & White.
In another area of the Heart and Vascular Institute, a group performing a diagnostic study on a patient was trying to get a look at the coronary artery on the right side of the heart.
The catheter starts its voyage in the groin area, goes around the arch of the aorta and is moved into the origin of the right coronary artery, Dehmer said.
The procedure was made more difficult because the patient’s coronary artery began higher than usual on the aorta.
Once in place, it became clear there was a severe blockage and the group began preparing to use a stent to open up the artery.
Among Scott & White’s leading edge cardiovascular programs are:
nStemi Care, a system set up by Scott & White for responding to heart attacks.
nHeart Aware, a free online program aimed at saving lives and preventing cardiovascular disease.
