High marks for El Camino program High marks for El Camino program (May 06, 2005)

Success of cardiac rehab shows in patient's vigor

By Kathy Schrenk

Like many men his age, Tom Cughbertson found himself packing too many pounds onto his 5-foot 11-inch frame as he got older.

By the time his weight got up to 240, he was ready to do something about it. He started exercising with machines at home, and got his weight down to 210. But in early January, he faced a setback.

One day while using his exercise machine, he started to feel bad and sat down. He blacked out. His arms went numb. But the symptoms went away, and he waited a couple days to go to his doctor. He was admitted to El Camino Hospital where a medical device called a stent was put in his heart. He had had a heart attack - there was a 90 percent blockage on one of his arteries - and two strokes.

At that point some people would have given up on exercise, but not Cughbertson. With the help of the cardiac rehabilitation program at El Camino, he was able to learn how to exercise safely and in a way that would help him lose more weight. At his latest weekly weigh-in, the scales showed that Cughbertson was down to 191.

Cughbertson is just one example of an El Camino cardiac-care success story. According to a new Web site launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, El Camino has one of the best cardiac treatment programs around.

For instance, 100 percent of cardiac patients are administered aspirin when admitted, compared to 94 percent overall in California. This is important because aspirin helps thin the blood and can reduce the severity of a heart attack if taken as soon as symptoms appear.

All patients at El Camino are also given aspirin on discharge, the HHS study found, compared to 88 percent in California.

El Camino also got high marks from the study in several pneumonia care categories.

One category where El Camino got low marks was in giving instructions to cardiac patients at discharge. Hospital spokesperson Judy Twitchell says that El Camino doctors realize this is an area that has room for improvement. The hospital is increasing the amount of standardized documentation patients get when they leave the hospital, she said, adding, "We feel even in the last two months that there's been improvement."

For proactive patients like Cughbertson, there certainly is help available for post-cardiac care. Cughbertson graduates from the rehab program on Monday with more energy and an empowering feeling that he can continue to improve his health.

"I feel great," he said. "I'm probably healthier than I have been in years. Things changed around in the last four or five months and I owe a lot of it, most of it, to the care I've gotten at El Camino."
E-mail Kathy Schrenk at kschrenk@mv-voice.com

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