It's the Final Week of American Heart Month and Time to Gather All the Takeaways
By Joanna Chikwe, MD, Chief, Cardiothoracic Surgery Division, and Director, Heart Institute
| Dr. Joanna Chikwe |
February means heart health awareness, but taking care of your heart requires a year-round commitment that has lifelong benefits. What will you do differently to take better care of your heart?
Heart disease can affect anyone, regardless of gender, age or background. That's why all of our cardiac care experts at Stony Brook University Heart Institute remain focused on how to best prevent heart disease and heal the heart.
When you come to Stony Brook Heart Institute, you can depend on quality and expertise for every aspect of your cardiac care — care that exceeds national outcomes. A few examples:
- Our renowned team of interventional cardiologists have long been on the forefront for treating acute myocardial infarction, or heart attack. In fact, we exceed national outcomes and have the best outcomes on Long Island when it comes to bringing lifesaving heart emergency care to heart attack victims, as reported on the Hospital Compare website.
We have the best outcomes on Long Island when it comes to
bringing lifesaving heart emergency care to heart attack victims.
- Our heart surgeons have a high degree of expertise in providing advanced approaches to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) — a surgical procedure that uses blood vessels from other areas of your body to restore blood flow to your heart.
- For patients with severe aortic stenosis (narrowing), Stony Brook is a leader in advancing the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure and is one of a select number of sites in the U.S. to offer this minimally invasive procedure for patients who are considered high, intermediate or low-risk for open surgery.
Stony Brook has excellent long-term data on patient outcomes with TAVR, and we are a tertiary referral center for evaluation of aortic valve disease.
Our Heart Institute has received a three-star rating — the highest awarded — from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for overall patient care and outcomes in isolated CABG surgery.
This distinguished award is in recognition of the isolated CABG procedures we performed from January to December 2017. The STS ratings are regarded as the definitive national reporting system for cardiac surgery (read more).
Our patient outcomes for survival with heart failure are the best
on Long Island and among the best throughout the nation.
- And, for patients with heart failure, a condition where the heart can't pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body, our world-renowned experts at the Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathy Center help patients to restore their quality of life, limit their symptoms and understand their disease.
We are proud that our patient outcomes for survival with heart failure are the best on Long Island and among the best nationally, according to Hospital Compare.
While we hope that you and your family never need acute cardiac services, you can be assured knowing that Long Island's only Chest Pain Center with Primary PCI and Resuscitation is right in your community.
And, if you suspect a heart attack, please remember it's best to call 911. Ambulances are equipped with defibrillators and most are equipped with 12-lead EKGs (electrocardiograms), which means they can transmit results to the hospital while en route. At Stony Brook, we assemble the treatment team and equipment you need before you arrive.
Want to do something today to learn about your heart health? Take a free heart health risk assessment at www.stonybrookmedicine.edu/hearthealth. Seeking a solution to a cardiac problem? Call us at 631-44-HEART (444-3278). We're ready to help.
[Grateful acknowledgment is made to TBR News Media for permission to reproduce Dr. Chikwe's article originally published in its newspapers and online on February 22, 2019.]
