Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital recognized as a top-performing hospital for the treatment of heart attack patients
HUNTLEY — Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest, McHenry, and Huntley Hospitals were all recently selected as one of 240 hospitals nationwide to receive the National Cardiovascular Data Registry’s 2022 Chest Pain-MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award.
According to Northwestern Medicine, the award is given in recognition of the commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations.
For hospitals to receive this recognition, they must have demonstrated sustained achievement in the “Chest Pain-MI Registry” for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021), as well as must have performed at the highest level for specific performance measures.
Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality improvement process using data to drive improvements in adherence to guideline recommendations and overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients, said Northwestern Medicine.
Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital has received this award for the third year in a row, while the McHenry and Lake Forest Hospitals have been bestowed this honor for four years now.
Representatives of Northwestern Medicine state that the expansion of their Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in McHenry County continues to evolve, which therefore provides patients who need advanced cardiac care with more convenient locations to travel to.
This has been demonstrated continuously such as when Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital achieved a major milestone with the completion of the 100th Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacements (TAVR).
With TAVR, a narrowed aortic valve is replaced using a catheter-based technique instead of needing a patient to undergo open-heart surgery.
In addition to the TAVR milestone, the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute located at the Huntley Hospital also reached a milestone of its own by successfully implanting the first CardioMEMS device, as previously reported in My Huntley News.
By reaching a major milestone, Huntley’s Northwestern Medicine Hospital also demonstrated its continued commitment to expanding the cardiac program within McHenry County.
As a brief recap, a CardioMEMS is a monitoring device that is deployed in the pulmonary artery, allowing non-invasive monitoring of pulmonary artery pressures, which helps to guide medical therapy in patients with heart failure, according to Northwestern Medicine.
As for the Lake Forest Hospital, they now utilize a novel technology, which they call “Shockwave intravascular lithotripsy.”
That method of treatment is used as adjunctive therapy for implanting stents in heavily calcified vessels.
Shockwave intravascular lithotripsy allows for optimal revascularization of calcified coronary arteries by ultrasonically breaking up calcium deposits before stent implantation in the artery, making these procedures safer and more successful.
“The Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Lake Forest, Huntley, and McHenry Hospitals are pleased to be recognized with the National Cardiovascular Data Registry’s 2022 Chest Pain-MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award,” said Dr. Ian Cohen, MD, FACC, FSCAI in a joint statement with Charles and Barbara Strang, Medical Directors of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute for Lake Forest, McHenry, and Huntley Hospitals. “We continue to provide the highest quality of care by offering new and innovative cardiovascular procedures in convenient settings close to home for our patients.”
For more information about Northwestern Medicine, visit news.nm.org/about-northwestern-medicine.html
