News Releases

Spectrum Health announced today the formation of the Frederik Meijer Heart and Vascular Institute along with a generous gift from Fred and Lena Meijer to help support its development. The Institute brings together expertise in clinical care, research and education.

Cardiologist Richard McNamara, MD, and cardiothoracic surgeon Lawrence Patzelt, MD, will serve as co-interim executive medical directors while a national search is conducted to recruit a permanent cardiovascular physician to lead the Institute. Suzette Jaskie will serve as the executivfe administrative director of the Institute.

The Institute is Spectrum Health’s next step in developing a cardiovascular program that rivals the best in the country, according to Matt Van Vranken, executive vice president, Spectrum Health System and president, Spectrum Health Hospital Group. “We’re already recognized nationally for the quality of our cardiovascular care, and we are very involved with research and medical education. However, the Institute will serve as the umbrella enterprise that coordinates clinical care with research and medical education as we combine these efforts into a program of national prominence. We are fortunate to have the continued support and confidence of the Meijer family, enabling us to create an unparalleled asset here in West Michigan for the region and the state.”

The Institute’s emphasis on research includes partnering with Van Andel Institute and Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Efforts will focus on translational research that begins in the lab and progresses to clinical trials for people with diseases such as heart failure, acute coronary syndromes and heart arrhythmias. This focus also will include the recruitment of several scientists to lead development of the Institute’s research efforts.

Steps also will be taken to implement a cardiovascular education program for physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and technologists. Once the research program is established, a cardiovascular education medical director will be recruited to create a broad medical education program.

Enhancement of Spectrum Health’s cardiovascular clinical care will continue while the research and educational facets of the Institute are being developed. Implementation of the heart transplant program continues and an increased focus on prevention strategies is planned.  This also will benefit community hospitals and their patients as the Institute works to improve the coordination of care for heart patients in the region. The Institute’s clinical specialists include physicians in the fields of cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, vascular surgery and radiology.

Van Vranken said the Institute is another step in making Grand Rapids a destination for health. “We view the formation of the Frederik Meijer Heart and Vascular Institute as the beginning of a transformation for Spectrum Health that takes us from a regional leader to national leadership in heart care.”

About Spectrum Health’s cardiovascular services:

• The Meijer Heart Center offers the most comprehensive cardiovafscular services in West Michigan with nationally recognized quality outcomes.
• Our specialized team of experts offer advanced services in one location, coordinating with the physicians and hospitals in a 13-county region. By concentrating services in one place, we are able to offer high quality care because research suggests that the factor most positively correlated with clinical excellence is volume-the more a surgical team does the same procedure together and the higher the volume of patients, the better the clinical results. More than 100 studies have demonstrated better results at high-volume hospitals with heart surgery, major cancer resections and other higher volume procedures.
• Thomson Reuters Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospitals in the nation-nine times. f
• The Wege Chest Pain Center was the first accredited chest pain center in Michigan and remains West Michigan’s only 24-hour, seven-day chest pain center.
• To achieve high quality goals, we closely track clinical and safety outcomes for heart conditions including heart attacks, open heart surgery and heart failure. Using nationally defined standards and proven indicators of quality of care, we benchmark our performance against fellow hospitals in Michigan and the nation.
• Surgical teams at the Meijer Heart Center performed nearly 900 adult open heart procedures in 2009. The experience of those teams working together has produced excellent results.
• Ourheart bypass graft surgery program has lower mortality rates than the overall rate nationally.
• Our 30-day death rate for heart attack patients is significantly lower than the national rate.
• 96 percent of heart attack patients received percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) within 90 minutes of arrival. National average is 81 percent. Michigan average is 79 percent. Higher percentages are better. Median time to PCI is 55 minutes. PCI helps to restore blood flow to the area of the heart that has lost blood supply, decreasing the likelihood of damage to the heart.
• Angioplasty/stent adult discharges are the highest volume in the Michigan with 2,204 patients.

For more information about Spectrum Health cardiovascular services, please visit the Meijer Heart Center website.

Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan that offers a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, a collection of eight hospitals and more than 140 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group, mmpc® and West Michigan Heart—physician groups totaling more than 400 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with nearly 580,000 members. Spectrum Health’s 16,000 employees, 1,500 medical staff members and 2,000 volunteers are committed to delivering the highest quality care. The organization provided $79.4 million in community benefit during its 2009 fiscal year. In 2010, Spectrum Health was named a Top 10 Health System by Thomson Reuters.