When it comes to matters of the heart, Hillcrest Hospital is your best choice for award-winning, nationally recognized cardiac care.
Our longstanding commitment to excellence has been acknowledged repeatedly in the community and in the entire country.
Hillcrest has been named one of America's 100 Top Hospitals numerous times, and our Cardiac Program has been awarded with national recognition, accreditation and honors for helping people with heart problems improve their health and enjoy longer, healthier lives.
Innovation and Experience
Our Cardiac Program is one of the largest in the area, featuring some of the most innovative and effective treatments available. Our board-certified cardiologists, radiologists and cardiovascular surgeons work closely with nurses and other health professionals who are trained in critical care and advanced cardiac life support.
What's more, Hillcrest is a Cleveland Clinic hospital, linking our facility with one of the most respected health care organizations in the world. If surgery is required, cardiovascular surgeons from Cleveland Clinic employ the advanced techniques that have helped the Cleveland Clinic's Heart & Vascular Institute repeatedly rank as the very best in the nation.
The Cardiac Program at Hillcrest Hospital focuses on prevention, detection, treatment and follow-up. Whether you have one of the most common or most complex heart problems, Hillcrest is a trusted resource for superior technology and outstanding professional care.
Prevention
The facts are clear: Cardiovascular disease is America's leading cause of death in men and women. Not even cancer claims as many lives.
To stop heart disease before it starts, Hillcrest Hospital is helping people recognize their risks and establish a routine of healthful eating and regular activity.
Various programs are help on the Hillcrest campus and at sites across Northeast Ohio. Come join us for these enjoyable, educational programs. Who knows? They might just save your life.
- Healthy Heart - This program pinpoints your key risk factors for heart disease, which may include high blood pressure, high blood sugar and abnormal cholesterol levels. Then, our friendly staff help you figure out how to keep your heart healthy by controlling these risks.
- Healthy Weigh - A monitored program to help you lose weight and feel good.
- Smokeless in Cleveland - Help for smokers who want to quit the habit.
- Diabetes Education - Effective strategies for living with diabetes and preventing its serious complications.
Detection
Imaging
There are many forms of cardiovascular (from "cardio" - heart and "vascular" - blood vessel) disease, including irregular heart rhythms, blocked arteries and stroke. Hillcrest Hospital features an impressive array of equipment that assists physicians in developing quick and accurate diagnoses for any heart-related disorder.
For a cardiac treatment to produce the best results, it's crucial that the physician see the clearest possible images of the heart. Hillcrest has some of the newest equipment for obtaining high quality pictures of the heart, including the revolutionary digital flat panel (DFP) imaging system. This break-through technology yields image quality that is far superior to any previous type of cardiac imaging system.
Other advanced diagnostic tools that are non-invasive - meaning they are used on the outside of the body - include a new 64-slice Computed Tomography (CT) scanner with cardio-CT angiography capabilities, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and echocardiography (echo).
Catheterization and Intravascular Ultrasound
Minimally-invasive testing procedures are often done in one of Hillcrest's state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization labs. Here, doctors may use angiography or a novel process called intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) to see inside the heart's arteries without having to perform major surgery.
Electrophysiology Testing
When the problem involves an irregular heartbeat -whether too fast or too slow- our doctors can use the specialized equipment in the electrophysiology (EP) laboratory for diagnosis as well.
Treatment
In the Operating Room
Hillcrest's cardiothoracic team assures patients that they are receiving the highest standard of cardiac surgical care. From coronary artery bypass to critical heart valve repairs, surgeons from Cleveland Clinic operating at Hillcrest are highly-skilled in the latest surgical techniques.
Non-surgical Treatment and Follow-Up Care
Interventional Cardiology
An "interventional" treatment is one that is performed using tiny catheters wires, balloons and stents inserted through extremely small incisions and carefully placed in the heart's blood vessel(s).
Dye is injected through these catheters allowing the physician to see the heart and treat it without open-heart surgery. Because this kind of treatment requires only small incisions, patients have less discomfort, a short hospital stay and a faster return to their daily activities than with traditional surgery.
Interventional treatments include balloon angioplasty, which opens narrowed or blocked arteries, and stenting, which leaves a small scaffold-like tube (a stent) in the artery to keep it open after the procedure.
Hillcrest uses the latest stent technology, drug-eluting stents, which have a coating of medication specially designed to help prevent artery closure.
Congestive Heart Failure Center
Congestive heart failure occurs when a person's heart does not pump blood efficiently. As a result, the body doesn't get enough of the oxygen and nutrients it needs, leaving patients feeling too weak and fatigued to perform their normal activities.
The Congestive Heart Failure Center helps people with heart failure regain a sense of normalcy and an enhanced quality of life through lifestyle and dietary changes.
The Center also offers a variety of medications and surgical treatments to stabilize the heart, slow the progression of the disease and reduce symptoms.
Heart Failure Services:
Symptom management
Cardiac monitoring
Fluid and/or edema management
Laboratory assessment
Medications
Follow-up assessments and care
Education about congestive heart failure's symptoms, medications, diet and fluid management, and appropriate physical activity as well as any signs that alert you to call your doctor or the Center's s
Cardiac Rehabilitation
After leaving the hospital, patients with heart problems can begin a medically-supervised program of physical conditioning, counseling and education to make the lifelong changes that will help them maintain good heart health.
Awards & Distinctions
· Named one of Thomson’s 100 Top Hospitals for Cardiovascular Care
· Designated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as One of Only Three Best Hospitals in th
U.S. for Treating Heart Attack and Heart Failure
· Highest rankings for cardiovascular car in the Consumer Guide to Ohio Hospital Quality
Hillcrest received the highest possible ranking in five cardiac categories including:
· Angioplasty
· Cardiac Catheterization
· Carotid (Neck) Artery Surgery
· Congestive Heart Failure
· Coronary Artery Bypass Graft
· Awarded first place in the Patient Safety Category in the Cleveland Clinic system for the Code Crimson initiative
· The only hospital in Greater Cleveland to Earn Full Accreditation with PCI from the Society of Chest Pain Centers