BetterLiving Magazine - Carle Foundation Hospital's Guide to Good Health

Men's Health

Be Heart Smart This WinterMen's Health

As the deep snow piles up on driveways, steps and sidewalks, Emergency Departments can expect to see an increased number of patients being admitted with chest pain and heart attacks. Extreme weather and strenuous exercise (such as shoveling snow) are two conditions that can dramatically raise a person’s chance of heart attack.

One of the main warning signs of a heart attack is chest pain, although according to Carle Foundation Hospital’s Emergency Department Director Allen Rinehart, RN, BSN, this pain can take many forms. “A lot of people think that it feels like an elephant sitting on their chest, radiating down their arm, but that’s not the whole story.” In truth, heart attacks can be preceded by any or all of the following symptoms:

  • Pain or pressure in the chest
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Pain that spreads from the chest into the jaw, neck and/or either arm
  • The indigestion-like sense of being ‘full’
  • Sudden onset of fatigue
  • A non-painful tightness around the stomach or chest (especially in women)

Any of these could be due to a reduced supply of oxygen to the heart, usually caused by a blockage or by excess stress on the cardiac muscles – which may result in a heart attack.

If you experience one or more of these symptoms, even if you’re nowhere near a snow shovel, Rinehart advises you to take it seriously. “Sit down. Rest. Call 911. Take an aspirin.”

Taking an aspirin, provided it is cleared by your physician, to thin the blood and allow an increased supply to the heart is a protective and possibly life-saving measure recommended by the American Heart Association. Rinehart also advises you not to get in the car. “A surprisingly small percentage of people having heart attacks arrive at the hospital by ambulance. Less than half, in fact. A lot of people are in denial; they think they’re okay, so they get in the car and try to drive here, which is a huge risk to take if you are in danger of passing out and having an accident.”

In addition to some of the better-known health measures (exercise, eating a healthy diet, quitting smoking, sensibly managing chronic conditions), Rinehart’s chief advice to anyone at risk of having a heart attack is to establish a
relationship with a primary care physician, and see him or her regularly for wellness visits and possibly a stress test to more accurately gauge level of risk.

Put your heart in good hands

If you do experience chest pain, you will want to entrust your care to an institution that has a solid level of expertise dealing with cardiac issues. The Society of Chest Pain Centers recently accredited Carle as a Chest Pain Center, making it the only such hospital in the region, and one of only 15 in the state of Illinois.

Our accreditation as a Chest Pain Center goes above and beyond the required standards to include a PCI designation (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention), a procedure commonly known as angioplasty to treat narrowed arteries of the heart. Carle is one of only seven Illinois hospitals to have a PCI designation.

Chest Pain Center accreditation certifies that a hospital has the processes and people in place to take care of acute coronary syndrome. “It’s recognition of the good work that Carle Foundation Hospital does,” Reinhart says. “It certifies that we’ve got people and processes in place to ensure that this community gets the best heart health care possible.” Becoming accredited was an intensive year-long process, during which Carle demonstrated across-the-board excellence in caring for cardiac emergency patients. Some of The Society of Chest Pain Centers criteria are:

  • Strong patient care outcomes.
  • An emergency department that offers a full spectrum of emergency cardiac care, including rapid diagnosis and fast-track treatment that often prevents a severe heart attack from occurring.
  • Standardized care (or a common set of guidelines) for patients entering with chest pain.
  • Cooperative relationships between cardiologists and Emergency Department physicians.
  • An integrated relationship with local emergency medical services that links care processes for patients with symptoms of possible acute coronary syndrome.
  • An emergency department program that minimizes delays in therapy treatments for patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Rinehart estimates that Carle’s Emergency Department sees twelve to fifteen chest pain patients every day, each requiring a rapid and complex set of interactions between hospital departments. The Chest Pain Center accreditation clearly demonstrates that this system is running smoothly.

“We want to catch every heart attack that comes in, within minutes,” says Rinehart.

And in fact, all of Carle’s Arrow Ambulances are now equipped with 12-lead electro-cardiogram (EKG) machines, so Carle’s Emergency Department staff can get a detailed picture of a patient’s cardiac situation while they are still on the way to the hospital and can put measures in place to care for them before they even arrive.

For more details about chest pain and about Carle’s Chest Pain Center designation, visit the newsroom section at www.carle.org.

Health Grades

Once again, Carle Foundation Hospital’s cardiology services have been recognized by HealthGrades. In this year’s rankings, Carle Foundation Hospital was named:

  • Ranked Among the Top 10% in the Nation for Overall Cardiac Services in 2009
  • Ranked Among the Top 10% in the Nation for Cardiac Surgery in 2009
  • Ranked Among the Top 10% in Illinois for Cardiac Surgery in 2009