Caring for your Heart

At Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, we help patients who already have heart disease, and those who are at high risk of developing it. We offer a variety of classes and programs, such as our Cardiac Rehabilitation Program and our Congestive Heart Failure Program, providing our patients with a carefully planned course of treatment that integrates diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Patients can also benefit by having a Healthy Heart Risk Assessment to learn how to manage their risk factors for future cardiac events.

Cardiac Rehabilitation Program
Our approach to cardiac rehabilitation Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital is progressive and multi-disciplinary. The program is designed to help people, who have experienced a cardiac event or heart disease, recover faster and return to full and productive lives.

The cardiac rehabilitation program may:

• strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system
• improve cholesterol and blood sugar control
• lower blood pressure
• help to maintain a safe body weight
• increase your activity level
• slow the progression of arthritis
• preserve increase bone density

Whether you're recovering from a heart attack, an angioplasty or cardiac surgery, our comprehensive three-phase cardiac conditioning program can help speed your recovery and reduce the risk and severity of future heart disease.

Three-Phase Cardiac Conditioning Program

• Phase I begins while you're still in the hospital. It consists of an education program and minimal exercise, including short walks around your room and down the hall.
• Phase II is a customized outpatient program, featuring telemetry monitoring, supervised exercise, nutrition counseling, stress management and learning about risk factors.
• Phase III provides outpatient maintenance through ongoing monitoring, support and education.

Congestive Heart Failure Program
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is not a disease but a serious condition that occurs when the heart is not pumping enough blood to meet the body's demand for oxygen. When the heart fails, it is unable to pump efficiently which often results in congestion in the lungs.

Treating heart failure at as early a stage as possible offers the best chance for a longer and better-quality life. Patients and their families who are coping with congestive heart failure (CHF) can participate in Advocate Good Samaritan's comprehensive program's team approach, specially designed to teach patients about their condition, their medications, how to maintain heart health and to offer support and assurance.

The Congestive Heart Failure Program specialized team offers the most recent and hopeful treatment options available, including:

• State of the art medications
• Mechanical heart assist devices
• Surgical interventions (resynchronization therapy and transplantation)
• CHF Solutions System 100 - a revolutionary new therapy that rapidly relieves fluid build-up, in a matter of hours rather than days, in patients with congestive heart failure. (page 10 of Health Advocate Magazine Winter 2003)

Outpatient Heart Failure Follow-up Program
To reinforce the physician's prescribed medication and treatment regimen, the patient will receive a follow-up telephone call after 48 hours, and again 14 days after discharge to discuss the patient's progress or any other problems, and to schedule a follow-up visit with the CHF nurse. A quarterly newsletter, further follow-up sessions and support group meetings to help patients socialize and share their experiences are also available as part of the Congestive Heart Failure Program.

Cardiac Outpatient Infusion Program
Patients with advanced heart failure can also benefit from our Cardiac Outpatient Infusion Program, featuring:

• Diuretic and inotropic intravenous medications
• Detailed evaluation and assessment
• Laboratory analysis
• Cardiac monitoring
• Education
• Follow-up to review home regimen and medications