Hoping to offer patients, their families and physicians a more streamlined approach to cardiac care, Union Memorial Hospital is expanding and updating its Heart Institute as part of an $8 million hospital-wide expansion plan.
Currently, the hospital?s Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Heart Institute is split between separate floors with the cardiac operating room and the cardiovascular intensive care unit on the ground floor and the cardiovascular “step down” recovery area on the seventh floor.
Expansion plans call for the three cardiac surgery units to be relocated to the fourth floor of the hospital.
“What we?re doing [with the new Heart Institute] is to increase patient and physician satisfaction,” said Cheryl Lunnen, director of cardiac and vascular service lines. “This way we won?t have to transfer patients to several different places in the hospital.”
Brad Chambers, Union Memorial?s chief operating officer, said the new center would also help the hospital remain competitive with other facilities in the area.
“I think in today?s competitive cardiac market you really need to specialize yourself out from the competition,” Chambers said. “To have a dedicated unit where patients can go from the time they enter into the facility until the time they leave really meets the need of the patient.”
Lunnen said construction of the new heart center began in early spring and is expected to be completed by November. The new Heart Institute will have three open-heart operating rooms and 26 large private rooms. The larger rooms will allow for more equipment and added privacy for patients and their families.
Lunnen said the new unit will especially appeal to family members who will know exactly where to find their loved ones.
“It will be much easier for families and everyone involved to handle what is a difficult situation,” she said. “It?s also easier for physicians as their patients are all located in the same place.”
An additional aspect of the cardiac project will include the relocation and expansion of the cardiac catheterization lab, which will be located in the basement of the main hospital. That unit will include six coronary labs and one peripheral lab.
“Everything related to that procedure will all be on the same level as well,” Lunnen said.
Easy on the heart
» According to hospital officials, Union Memorial does more beating heart bypass surgeries than any other hospital in the region. This procedure allows a patient?s heart to continue beating during surgery rather than having the patient put on a heart-lung machine. Benefits of the beating heart procedure are smaller incision, reduced blood loss, less risk of infection and shorter recovery time.
