Heart Attacks

A better approach to treating heart attacks. People who have heart attacks need help from many different specialties within a medical center. This is why the Strong Heart & Vascular Center uses a team approach to bring all of these specialties together—for every heart attack victim. When a person who has experienced a heart attack arrives in our Emergency Department, our MI (Myocardial Infarction) Team is immediately paged. These are specialists from cardiology, heart surgery, catheter laboratory and vascular surgery that come together on each case to provide the broad spectrum of expertise necessary to ensure the best possible outcome for every patient.

Preventing brain damage. When the brain is deprived of oxygen during a heart attack,there is a chance that brain damage could result. However, by bringing down the body’s core temperature, the chances of brain damage are substantially reduced. A team of neurologists, cardiologists, critical care specialists and emergency medicine physicians at the Strong Heart & Vascular Center use the Arctic Sun non-invasive cooling system to lower the core temperature of heart attack victims, and then monitor it closely in the period immediately following the heart attack. This procedure has helped to dramatically reduce the risk of brain damage in heart attack victims and the Strong Heart & Vascular Center was the first in upstate New York to put this system into operation.

Defining the future. The Strong Heart & Vascular Center is involved in many research projects that promise better outcomes for heart attack victims, and one day aspire to help prevent heart attacks altogether. One current study is looking at a drug called rimonabant and its effect on atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is the buildup of cholesterol on the walls of arteries, which is attributed to being a major cause of heart attack and stroke. Unlike other cholesterol-lowering drugs, rimonabant works by controlling the appetite and other addictive behaviors. This, in addition to the many other research studies we are conducting, is helping us to improve the treatment of heart disease each year.

A better way to transport patients. When someone has a very serious heart attack, the time spent getting to the hospital can be the difference between life and death. We recognize how crucial these moments are and, in partnership with Rural/Metro Medical Services, the Strong Heart & Vascular Center has developed a state-of-the-art vehicle for transporting the very sickest patients to Strong. The Critical Care Transport vehicle has double the space of typical ambulances. This extra capacity provides room for six health care professionals as well as the extremely sophisticated equipment needed to keep seriously ill patients alive. In fact, this vehicle is also used to transport patients from other hospitals to Strong due to its ability to accommodate patients that are dependent upon advanced life support systems.