If there’s such a thing as one-stop shopping for “cardiac care” the top brass at Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview believe they’ve created such a space.
“We’re achieving critical mass in one location,” said Gregory Mishkel, Chief Division of Cardiology and Co-Director with CVI. “When you get that critical mass, and that includes nursing … when you get into a centralized location you achieve that critical mass that really facilities all things.”
Endeavor Health opened its new Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) on its Glenbrook Hospital campus at 2100 Pfingsten Road in the north suburb on May 13. The $170 million, four-story, 170,000-square-foot facility serves as a central destination for heart and vascular patients in the north region of Endeavor Health, said officials. That includes a long list of comprehensive cardiovascular services including clinical cardiology, diagnostic testing, elective cardiac and vascular surgeries, catheterizations, structural heart procedures, electrophysiology studies, women’s cardiology, sports cardiology, cardio-oncology, wellness and prevention, and more.
Glenbrook Hospital will also continue as an “acute care hospital” with full emergency department and non-cardiac inpatient services and procedures.
“Everybody is very excited,” Mishkel said. “Very engaged. Very optimistic. It seems to me that any concerns regarding the move have either evaporated or put on the back burner and giving the place every opportunity to succeed.”
“We’ve had seamless transfer of patients from Evanston Hospital. Highland Hospital. Swedish Hospital,” he added. “That’s occurred and is occurring. Patients in intensive care have transferred over including the extremely critically ill patients on life support. People feel good about all the moving pieces coming together.”
The combination of a “cutting-edge building and experienced multidisciplinary cardiac care team” means Endeavor Health and the CVI at Glenbrook Hospital ensure patients have access to the latest in treatments, testing and technology, including implantation of the newest Food and Drug Administration-approved leadless pacemakers for heart rhythm disorders, innovative non-surgical catheter-based heart, aortic and mitral valve treatments, minimally invasive endovascular (inside the blood vessels) techniques for treating aortic aneurysms and carotid artery disease, personalized medicine to uncover genetically driven cardiac conditions and access to the latest medical, endovascular and surgical techniques through clinical trials, said officials.
“There are so many little and large moving pieces,” Mishkel said. “Project management on a job like this is a huge undertaking. A lot of thought and coordination has gone into how do we manage transfers in a fair and equitable and safe way of patients between our various pavilions?”
He also said the CVI is “dipping its toe” into Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in the form of “AI for Echo” which can “overread” imaging scans, allowing echocardiogram labs to increase the efficiency of testing, standardize reporting and identify “incidental findings.”
“There’s lots of implications about AI-related work including the security of The Cloud,” Mishkel explained. “When you’re dealing with health care, and in particular with patient information, there may be lots of good ideas about how AI can improve processes or reduce work.”
And the fact some Chicago area hospitals have recently been the victims of cyber hacks and were forced to pay a “ransom” to have critical patient information returned is not lost on CVI, said Mishkel.
“We do everything that you can conceivably do with the highest level of security to try and prevent those occurrences from happening,” he said. “It’s an extraordinarily high priority for our system with a very significant amount of resources put into preventing it. I hope it never happens.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.