Heart Failure Program up for State Funding

SPRINGFIELD -- Stephen Jennison, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.R.C.P. Edin., Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants, Ltd., recently was named to the Illinois Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Task Force that was originally formed in June 2000. Dr. Jennison is the medical director of the Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program at Prairie Heart Institute at St. John's Hospital.

In addition to being named to the task force, Dr. Jennison was recognized by the task force for
implementing a multi-disciplinary program at Prairie Heart Institute to help congestive heart failure patients participate in and manage their conditions more successfully. The task force has called upon the Illinois General Assembly to allocate approximately $1.9 million to expand the program to additional participants and add cardiac rehabilitation - a service which is not typically a covered medical expense for congestive heart failure patients.

At Prairie Heart Institute the implementation of this pioneering effort has improved outcomes of congestive heart failure (CHF) patients by reducing the number of hospitalizations for CHF, decreasing the need for medications to control the disease, an improvement in quality of life for CHF
patients, and allowing some people placed on the heart transplant list to improve and be removed from the list.

The key component of the program is daily management of the congestive heart failure patient
by the medical team. The tool used to help monitor these patients is the Cardiocom Telescale. This scale monitors a patien'ss weight and symptoms and sends this information to the doctor's office via
telephone lines. The information is analyzed and allows the doctor's office to adjust medications or make changes to the treatment plan immediately. In addition to the scale technology, education and
cardiac rehabilitation are integral components of the heart failure program at Prairie Heart Institute.

In 1999, 34 patients were treated by the Heart Failure team at Prairie Heart Institue. In the year prior to their enrollment in the program, these 34 patients had generated $883,592 in medical care charges. In 1999, (once enrolled in the Prairie Heart Institute program) these 34 patients generated only $355,390 in charges for medical care, indicating a reduction of more than 50 percent. One patient, who had been admitted to the hospital 10 times in the 18 months prior to his enrollment in the program, has not required hospitalization for his congestive heart failure for the three years since his enrollment in the Prairie Heart Institute program.

In a report addressed to Governor George Ryan, the task force says of the programs it recommended for funding, "These programs cover the entire life-cycle (sic), and many have already demonstrated their effectiveness nationally and in limited implementation in Illinois. State government must begin now to expand these promising initiatives to even more locations in Illinois."