The well-oiled machine that does 1,500 adult open heart procedures a year at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn will do the same thing at Condell Medical Center. Condell's nurses and anesthesiologists will train at Christ. Estimates are that 200-250 operations will be performed at Condell the first year of the program. It could accelerate to 500 or more in a few years. Condell Medical Center is now a local resource for complete management of all cardiac problems.
Patients can have long-term acute care right in their community.
The advantage is that we're in the center of the county. And we relate to our patients the same way their primary-care physicians do. The impact of Condell's open-heart surgery program will resonate throughout the hospital, but no more loudly than along the path from the Emergency Department to the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. Often, the medical process will start in the Emergency Department, when a patient will come in complaining of chest pain or another symptom of heart attack. They recognize the signs and symptoms.