Published on February 26, 2010

Genesis Heart Institute Spans The Region

Maquoketa-area man receives timely care at Genesis

Robert Aldis of rural Maquoketa felt overwhelming fatigue while working in his yard last October. He suddenly felt weighed down by exhaustion; his arms became weak and heavy.

Once he came inside, his wife, Karen, herself a two-time veteran of heart attack, knew her 68-year-old husband was experiencing a heart-related emergency.

"She told me, 'I think you're having a heart attack.' I didn't want to believe it because I had just gotten myself checked out," Robert Aldis says.

The couple went to nearby Jackson County Hospital, where Mr. Aldis was stabilized and immediately taken to Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, where some of the fastest heart attack response times in the nation occur.

Thanks to a heart attack alert system, called an M.I. Alert, he was transported by ambulance to Davenport, where a mobilized team met him in the hospital's Cardiac Catheterization Lab. His blocked artery was opened.

"It all happened very fast," says Mr. Aldis, who had his first heart attack three years earlier. "I received five stents that day. I later had a pacemakerdefibrillator put in."

Rapid treatment
With this streamlined heart attack alert process, heart attack patients can be more quickly transferred, says Lisa Foster, Manager of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at Genesis, Davenport. It takes a team effort to make it happen -- from paramedics in the field to health care teams at outlying hospitals and at the Davenport campus.

"So many people are working together toward the same goal -- to restore blood flow to the blocked artery," Foster says. "With a heart attack, time is muscle. We know that getting the patient to the Cath Lab so we can open the artery as quickly as possible means less damage to the heart muscle and improved survival."

Cardiologists with Cardiovascular Medicine, P.C., also provide outreach across the region in smaller towns including Maquoketa, Clinton, DeWitt, Muscatine, West Burlington and Dubuque in Iowa and Aledo, Sterling and Geneseo in Illinois.

Relationships with hospitals like Jackson County Hospital in Maquoketa help bring about coordination at its best, she adds. In addition to that hospital, Genesis also has M.I. Alert agreements with hospitals in Sterling and Burlington, which have Cardiac Catheterization Labs, and Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt, which does not.

The Genesis Medical Center, Illini Campus, also has an M.I. Alert process, and patients in the midst of a heart attack can receive emergency angioplasty there. In addition, the Illini Cardiac Catheterization Lab also performs elective, low-tomoderate risk coronary and electrophysiology procedures.

"We partner with small facilities, some of which don't have a Cardiac Catheterization Lab, so we can provide that service to heart attack patients in need," Foster says. "For example, if a patient in the midst of a heart attack comes to the hospital in Maquoketa, that hospital can call the Genesis M.I. Alert number, which puts them in direct contact with cardiologists who begin to facilitate the process of getting the patient transferred to Davenport. The preference is to get the patient to the facility where we can open their blocked artery the fastest."

The Genesis Cardiac Catheterization Lab in Davenport, which performs over 2,500 percutaneous transluminal coronary interventions (PTCIs) and more than 8,500 procedures each year, has noteworthy "door-to-balloon" times.

The average door-to-balloon time is 68 minutes. That means from the time the patient presents to one of the Emergency Departments at Genesis Medical Center, Davenport to when a cardiologist opens the blocked artery in one of eight, state-of-the-art Genesis catheterization labs.

That's far faster than the 90-minute standard of care set by the American College of Cardiology.

Building relationships
For patients like Mr. Aldis, timely transport to the Genesis Catheterization Lab can mean the difference between permanent damage to the heart muscle.

"My wife and I both have heart problems," he says. "We've always had great experience with Genesis, and it was reassuring to know there was coordination with our hometown hospital in Maquoketa."

Mr. Aldis appreciates the convenience of being able to see his cardiologist Randolph Lewis, M.D., at Jackson County Hospital. Dr. Lewis has office hours each month there. He also has periodic check-ups with electrophysiologist Blair Foreman, M.D., on the third floor of the Genesis Heart Institute in Davenport.

In the midst of her first heart attack 12 years ago, Karen Aldis also was sent from Jackson County Hospital by ambulance to Davenport. She has received a pacemaker from electrophysiologist Michael Giudici, M.D., and was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy by cardiologist Kathleen Keyes, M.D., she says.

Both Genesis Heart Institute physicians have office hours at nearby Genesis Medical Center, DeWitt, and Mrs. Aldis can see them close to her home for her appointments.

"We live in the country, and we really appreciate the C.V. Med. heart specialists coming to our small towns so we don't have to drive as much to the Quad Cities," she concludes. "We're grateful for the great care and expertise we've always found at Genesis."

The Genesis Heart Institute has received the highest rating from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons the world's premier organization of cardiothoracic surgeons and researchers. It is the Quad Cities' only UnitedHealth Premium Cardiac Specialty Center by UnitedHealthcare. It also is the Quad Cities' only Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care, from Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa.