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Heart attack victims have the opportunity for an enhanced level of service and care at Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital.
The hospital has launched its advanced cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program and is the only hospital in northern Minnesota to offer the additional care.
“Now we’re going on to the next step,” said Tommy Teigen, cardiopulmonary team leader at EBCH. “Everything we’ve done up to this point has been done to catch us up to everyone, but this puts us ahead of everybody.”
EBCH is only the second health system in the state with the advanced rehabilitation program, Teigen said Tuesday.
“We’re trying to get to a level of care that you can’t get anywhere else,” he said.
According to Teigen, traditional cardiac rehabilitation involves about 36 sessions with patients, mostly exercise centered with some information education.
“With this (Ely’s advanced program) you get 72 sessions, and there is a direct correlation between the amount of sessions you get and hospital re-admittance,” said Teigen. “The more you get, the less likely you are to be re-hospitalized. This gets you twice as many sessions you’re less likely to be re-hospitalized and there’s more formal education where we actually have classes set up for people to take around cooking, around mental health, around setting up a fitness program at home.”
The program is covered by most insurance plans and EBCH is working on getting it certified for Medicare coverage.
“That’s the big hurdle to clear and should be done within the next couple of weeks,” said Teigen.
Like many other businesses in Ely, EBCH faces fluctuations in customer demand based on the season.
“Being the town that we are, it’s very seasonal,” said Teigen. “It could be as few as five (patients in cardio rehabilitation) during the winter and as many as 20 in the summer,” said Teigen.
Tommy Teigen
