St. Elizabeth Youngstown Wins 2 Heart Association Awards

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The American Heart Association has presented St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital with Gold Plus awards for its heart failure and stroke treatment.

Overall, the Mercy Health hospital has received the Get With The Guidelines Gold Plus award for heart failure treatment eight times, while it has received the Gold Plus award for stroke treatment for seven straight years.

“We are pleased to recognize Mercy Health and St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for their commitment to heart failure and stroke care,” said Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, national chairman of the American Heart Association’s quality oversight committee, in a statement. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”

St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital has also met scientific guidelines as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, featuring a  system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. The program has held the designation since 2004.

The American Heart Association measures heart failure care by the proper use of medications, aggressive risk-reduction therapies and the care transition and on-going patient monitoring. Each of the Mercy Health cardiovascular team including cardiologists, electrophysiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons work together to ensure each patient has the best care plan possible.

At St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, not only are patients provided with the highest-quality, compassionate heart care, they work with physicians who are using the latest technologies to best keep people out of the hospital and time doing things they enjoy most! 

“When conventional heart therapies no longer work, we look at new technologies and ways to treat those considered to be in advanced heart failure.” said Mercy Health cardiologist Dr. Kwon Miller. “Not only are these patients provided with a whole-team approach to their care plan, we use specialized, high-tech devices such as cardiomems to continuously monitor patients.” 

Cardiomems technology acts to monitor fluid build-up in the chest. Once a day, the patient is asked to lay down on a special pillow that will upload their fluid level to the physician’s office. If the level is high, the patient is contacted, and an intervention may be required. “We see some patients with high levels that don’t have symptoms, so this device helps us keep people out of the hospital” said Dr. Miller.  

When it comes to stroke care, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

Because of its prevalence, the stroke program at Mercy Health has adopted the latest in technologies, including implementing interventions such as telestroke services. 

“Telestroke assists in early management of patients with stroke and decision making for IV clotting busting medications for those that are eligible by using video technology for rapid assessment,” said Dr. Dominic Hickey, neurohospitalist at Mercy Health-Youngstown. “Timing is critical when it comes to the treatment of stroke.”

Source: Mercy Health-Youngstown

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.