“Athletics play a valuable role in the development of young people and serve as a source of pride for communities across Oklahoma,” commented OSSAA Executive Director Danny Rennels. “Our member schools are very appreciative of Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates and Oklahoma Heart Hospital for their participation. Their support has a huge impact on young people, schools and communities.”
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Dr. John Harvey Named New CEO at Oklahoma Heart Hospital
Increased Demand for Cardiovascular Care in Oklahoma Prompts Creation of New Position
January 24, 2007
Dr. John Harvey has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Oklahoma Heart Hospital. Dr. Harvey was unanimously appointed by the hospital board after holding the position of co-president for the hospital since it was built in 2002.
“The growth at Oklahoma Heart Hospital in the past four-and-a-half years has far exceeded our expectations in patient volume and quality markers,” noted Dr. Harvey. “We can have no greater measure of success than the approval of our patients and the assurance they are getting the best possible medical care.”
The Oklahoma Heart Hospital was the first all-digital hospital in the nation when it opened in 2002. Press Ganey Associates, a nationally recognized company that measures the level of patient satisfaction among the nation’s top hospitals, named the Oklahoma Heart Hospital a 2006 Summit Award winner. OHH has ranked at 99% in patient satisfaction for the past three straight years.
The Center for Medicare Services (CMS) has also ranked OHH in the top five percent of hospitals in achieving its quality care core measures. In 2005, New York Times singled out the Oklahoma Heart Hospital as the top hospital in the nation in quality measures administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. OHH achieved a 100 percent rating for delivering quality treatment to the highest number of cardiovascular patients.
Patient admissions to the hospital have increased more than 30 percent and steadily climbed every year, ER visits have skyrocketed to more than 80 percent
“Oklahoma is number one in the nation for heart disease, a sad statistic that we at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital are passionate about changing. The significant growth we’ve experienced tells us Oklahomans are eager to address their cardiovascular disease either in treatment or prevention,” continued Dr. Harvey. “To address the increase for cardiovascular and vascular services, we will likely consider expanding our facilities here at OHH in the future. Dealing with that growth has prompted the need for a CEO level administrator.”
Dr. Harvey will continue his patient contact as an interventional cardiologist with OHH and Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates.
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Nationally Known Congestive Heart Failure Expert Leads Team in Nation’s First Implantation of Tiny Monitoring Device at Oklahoma Heart Hospital
FDA Study Conducted by Dr. Philip Adamson and Oklahoma Cardiovascular Research Group
December 22, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY—An Oklahoma man is the first in the nation to receive a wireless pressure sensor that is so tiny it can actually be implanted in an artery around the heart, to monitor the fluid pressures of the heart. The device was implanted at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital by Dr. Philip Adamson, national known congestive heart failure expert. The FDA study in Oklahoma is being coordinated by Oklahoma Cardiovascular Research Group, (OCRG), the research arm of Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates.
The wireless sensor is a proprietary miniature device developed by CardioMEMS which is delivered to the patient’s pulmonary artery using a simple, catheter based procedure. The pulmonary artery pressure is then measured and displayed using a proprietary electronic monitoring system that acts like an antenna.
Dr. Philip Adamson, Medical Director of the Heart Failure Institute at Oklahoma Heart Hospital, is the principal researcher on the FDA study: “One of the hallmarks of congestive heart failure is that blood and fluid pressure back up around the heart resulting in an excess of fluids entering the lungs and other body tissues. That fluid pressure build-up typically goes unseen until it creates a crisis in the patient’s condition often requiring hospitalization. This monitoring device is being tested to enable detection of fluid build up before it becomes a crisis.”
Once the tiny device is implanted, the data derived from the CardioMEMS system can be communicated remotely to the physician’s office.
“This ability to remotely monitor heart pressures has the potential to dramatically improve patient outcomes,” continued Dr. Adamson. “Our greatest success in managing heart failure comes when we can frequently check a patient’s condition and adjust their medications and treatment protocol accordingly. We believe the ability to monitor patients remotely can increase the potential for success and at the same time will be easier on the patient who doesn’t have to come into the clinic as often.”
Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates is the state’s largest group of cardiovascular specialists with 39 physicians in nearly 40 clinics across Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma Heart Hospital.
The Oklahoma Heart Hospital is the state’s first all-digital hospital totally focused on the care of hearts and the vascular system.
About CardioMEMS, Inc.
CardioMEMS is a medical device company that has developed and is commercializing a proprietary wireless sensing and communication technology for the human body. CardioMEMS’ technology platform is designed to improve the management of severe chronic cardiovascular diseases such as aneurysms, heart failure and hypertension. CardioMEMS’ miniature wireless sensors can be implanted using minimally-invasive techniques and transmit cardiac output, blood pressure and heart rate data which are critical to the management of patients.
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OKLAHOMA HEART HOSPITAL IMPLANTING INVESTIGATIONAL HEART MONITOR TO TEST MANAGEMENT OF HEART FAILURE
Dr. Philip Adamson Principal Clinical Investigator in National Study
OCTOBER 24, 2006
A physician at Oklahoma Heart Hospital has implanted an investigational device in an Oklahoma man as part of a study to determine if the new device can help treat chronic heart failure patients by detecting changes in pressure of the heart.
Dr. Mark Harvey, an electrophysiologist at Oklahoma Cardiovascular Specialists, implanted the first device. Dr. Philip Adamson, medical director of the Heart Failure Institute, is an investigator in the HOMEOSTASIS II (Hemodynamically Guided Home Self-Therapy in Severe Heart Failure Patients) feasibility trial. The feasibility trial will help determine if enough is known about the system to pursue a pivotal study that can evaluate the system’s safety and effectiveness in treating chronic heart failure.
The trial is a prospective, multi-center, non-randomized, open label study collecting safety and effectiveness data about St. Jude Medical’s HeartPOD® Heart Failure Management System.
“The HeartPOD is designed to give real-time data about the pressures in the heart to find out if patients are accumulating too much fluid,” noted Dr. Adamson. “Currently, we use other external cues to determine the pressures or pumping power of the heart muscle, such as water weight gain, oxygen saturation levels and respiration rates. Those indicators are not very precise and may not give us all information that this implantable device could provide to manage heart failure.”
The system consists of a permanently implanted blood pressure sensor that is placed in the heart and is connected to an implanted communications coil. This system is designed to allow the patient to directly monitor left atrial pressure; the readings from the implant are communicated from within the heart to a hand-held computer called a Patient Advisory Module. That information can be reviewed by the physician and used to adjust heart failure therapies and medications on a dose-by-dose basis.
“This trial is designed to discover if knowing atrial pressures as they are rising in a patient may help us immediately determine the proper dosage and sequence of medications to help keep our patients’ cardiovascular systems under control and keep the them out of the hospital,” continued Dr. Adamson. “Think of this monitoring device for heart failure patients as you would a home glucose monitoring device for diabetics. In a similar way, this device may provide information that helps patients get the exact amount of medication needed at the right time.”
Left atrial pressure is a red flag for predicting an acute phase of worsening heart failure that can lead to water accumulating in the lungs, lung congestion, and a spiraling heart condition that requires urgent hospitalization. This cascading accumulation of water in the lungs accounts for 90 percent of hospitalizations in heart failure patients and a three to four-fold increase in death.
The HOMEOSTASIS II trial is being conduced at a limited number of U.S. centers. The trial will assess preliminary safety and effectiveness data of the HeartPOD System, including being evaluated as a means to provide an early warning system of potential acute heart failure episodes.
Five million Americans already suffer from chronic heart failure, and an additional 550,000 Americans are diagnosed with it each year. Congestive heart failure is the number one cause of hospital admissions and the cost to society exceeds $37 billion each year.
Just 10 years ago half of the people diagnosed with congestive heart disease died within five years; today the death rate in five years has dropped to just 15 percent.
“With advanced heart monitoring therapies, new research applications and new training for physicians in early detection, we are turning the tables on congestive heart failure by replacing hopelessness with real hope,” concluded Dr. Adamson.
The HeartPOD System was granted an Investigational Device Exemption by the U.S. Food Drug Administration for use in this feasibility trial.
Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates is the state’s largest group of cardiovascular specialists with 39 physicians in nearly 40 clinics across Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma Heart Hospital.
The Oklahoma Heart Hospital is the state’s first all-digital hospital totally focused on the care of hearts and the vascular system.
The local research is being coordinated by Oklahoma Cardiovascular Research Group, (OCRG), the research arm of Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates.
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Oklahoma Heart Hospital Receives “Best Acute Care Hospitals Award”
Award Honors Oklahoma Hospital for Excellence in Caring for Most Critical Cardiovascular Patients
May 15, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY—Oklahoma Heart Hospital (OHH) has received the Total Benchmark Solution Top 100 Quality Award for Best Acute Care Hospitals over the past year, based upon quality measure data provided by U.S. health care organizations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS is the federal agency responsible for administering Medicare, Medicaid, and several other health-related programs.
The Oklahoma Heart Hospital was selected for its excellence markers in caring for patients with heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, and in surgery.
“This award means a great deal to our team because it recognizes our commitment to quality care measures in specific areas that truly impact our patient outcomes,” noted Peggy Tipton, R.N., Chief Operating Officer. “Our physicians and nurses have worked very hard to make these quality measures routine practice here at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital so that our patients and their families will know they are getting the very best care.”
Hospitals collect the data for the CMS quality measures by abstracting data from the hospitals’ patient records. The measures used are based upon 16 quality measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). Such quality measures include simple efforts such as dispensing an aspirin to the patient upon arrival with a suspected heart attack, to complicated processes such as prescribing a Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with 120 minutes of arrival to the hospital with an acute myocardial infarction.
OHH is among the top hospitals in the nation in patient satisfaction, with a 99th percentile ranking from the Press Ganey Associates’ survey of more than 850 hospitals and 500,000 patients. OHH is among the highest performing hospitals on every question in the survey.
OHH strives for optimum nursing staffing, no nurse at OHH ever cares for more than four patients at once. Four patients for each nurse is the maximum nurse to patient ratio. OHH maintains a 98% retention rate for its nurses, and the average experience for an OHH nurse is 9 years.
Oklahoma Heart Hospital is the state’s first all-digital hospital totally focused on the care of hearts.
Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates is the states largest group of cardiovascular specialists with 37 physicians in nearly 40 clinics across Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma Heart Hospital.
Total Benchmark Solution, LLC is a leading provider of benchmarking, decision support, and consulting services for healthcare organizations throughout North America. TBS is based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and South Bend, Indiana and was founded by recognized healthcare benchmarking and quality experts Bradley Petersen and John O'Brien. TBS's vision is to be the industry standard for measuring and benchmarking the cost, staffing, quality and satisfaction of healthcare service. The firm's benchmarking and consulting services increase clients' operations effectiveness through benchmarking focused performance improvement initiatives to manage costs, improved customer service, and enhance the quality of patient care.
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