UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids unveils Heart and Vascular Institute

UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids, which consists of St. Luke’s Hospital and UnityPoint Clinic Cardiology, and the cardiovascular surgeons from Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa today are unveiling a new Heart and Vascular Institute, the first and only in Cedar Rapids.

It’s a team of providers working together, to provide Eastern Iowans with access to the highest level of cardiac care, so patients will not need to leave Cedar Rapids for heart care.
St. Luke’s, the city’s only nationally recognized heart program and UnityPoint Clinic Cardiology, the area’s largest and oldest cardiology practice, along with the Heart and Vascular surgeons from Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa have joined together to advance and improve heart and vascular care services for Eastern Iowans.

The Institute will treat the most complicated heart conditions and offers:
• Better patient experience
• Better coordinated care
• Reduced costs by avoiding duplication of services such as diagnostic testing
• Clinical trials and research
• Leading edge technology and cardiovascular care

This cardiovascular expertise provides eastern Iowans access to heart care experts with advanced training and a wide range of specialties that focus on the following areas:
• Cardiac and vascular surgery
• Cardiovascular imaging
• Electrophysiology
• Advanced heart failure treatment and care
• Heart disease prevention
• Clinical trials and research
• Structural heart disease (including nonsurgical cardiac valve implantation)
• Coronary and vascular therapeutics
A closer look at the history of heart care at UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids:
• 1966 Cardiac Care Unit opened
• 1978 First and only Cedar Rapids hospital to offer open-heart surgery
• 1983 First Cedar Rapids Cardiac Rehabilitation program established
• 1995 First Cedar Rapids hospital to offer cardiac stents
• 2000 Nassif Heart Center opened
• 2002 First Iowa hospital to introduce the hypothermia protocol for cardiac arrest patients
• 2004 Named a Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospital for the first time
• 2006 Transition to Home program for heart failure patients began
• 2007 First Cedar Rapids hospital to perform patent foraman ovale (PFO)/atrial septal defect
(ASD) closure
• 2009 Cardiologists, L.C. joins St. Luke’s Hospital
• 2010 Received full accreditation as a Chest Pain Center with percutaneous coronary
intervention (PCI) from the Society of Chest Pain Centers
• 2013 One of three hospitals in the world using a high-resolution electrophysiology (EP)
catheter
• 2013 Cardiologists, L.C. changes its name to UnityPoint Clinic Cardiology and opens in the
Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa Medical Pavilion
• 2013 St. Luke’s receives full accreditation from the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care
• 2014 First in Cedar Rapids to use the Artic Front Advance Cardiac Cryoballoon System
• 2014 St. Luke’s develops a program for treating chronic coronary disease; chronic total
occlusions (CTO)

Additionally UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids has been named a top cardiovascular hospital by Truven Health six times in the last ten years and made the Becker's Hospital Review list of "100 Hospitals With Great Heart Programs” and again in 2013, received full accreditation as a Chest Pain Center with PCI from the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. These national, independent organizations recognized UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids’ quality of care, which has fewer complications, better outcomes and higher survival rates. Hospitals cannot pay to be included on these lists.

Learn more about UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids’ Heart and Vascular Institute at unitypoint.org/heart or call (319) 364-7101.