In 2017, Wesbury’s Grace Rehabilitation and Health Center was named one of St. Vincent’s Cardiac Centers of Excellence within the Allegheny Healthcare Network. Since that time, the Nursing staff at Wesbury’s Grace Rehabilitation and Health Center has been training for the program’s implementation in the summer of 2018. HeartCare is a multi-faceted program to help in transition from the hospital to home after a diagnoses of heart disease, including heart failure, heart attack, bypass or valve surgery, heart transplantation, or stent placement. The goal is to provide continued care in each setting that may be encountered after being discharged from the hospital, including local short- and long-term care facilities and to the home. This ensures patients receive all that is needed to maintain a healthy heart and lifestyle.
“Grace Rehabilitation and Health Center’s short-term rehab program served over 200 individuals last year,” says Sheila Bundy, Administrator, Grace Rehabilitation and Health Center, and Wesbury Director of Healthcare Services. “We are thrilled to add this special Cardiac Rehab program to our list of services. A large part of my role is to identify unmet needs on our campus and in the surrounding community. We then develop programs or seek to partner with other agencies in an effort to meet those needs. Having spent most of my life in this area, it is gratifying to see programs like this one available locally.”
Each Center of Excellence/HeartCare partner’s facilities and services are appropriately trained for heart patients with the standards that are developed from Allegheny Health Network cardiac physicians, surgeons, and cardiologists. As a partner, Wesbury looks to help ensure a smooth transition during each step in keeping the heart healthy by providing standardized care, remote patient health monitoring, rehabilitation therapy, education for the patient on how to manage their heart condition, and clinical follow-ups with physicians and cardiac professionals. This is one of the only programs of this type available in the country, and the HeartCare Program is overseen by leading cardiac doctors who are responsible for caring for their patient’s heart regardless of where they are receiving care. For more information on St. Vincent Hospital and the Allegheny Health Network, visit www.AHN.org.
