Endeavor Health's Glenbrook Hospital opens state-of-the-art cardiac care facility

GLENVIEW, Ill. - An aging population is one reason why doctors at Endeavor Health are taking cardiac care to a new level. They did so by opening a "hospital within a hospital."

In a Fox 32 special report, Sylvia Perez gives us an inside look at what they are doing to help heart patients in Chicago and across the country.

Endeavor Health's Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview is now home to its new Cardiovascular Institute.

"What we’ve done is relocated all of our prior sites of advanced cardiovascular services from Highland Park, Evanston, Swedish Hospital, and we’re relocating them to Glenbrook Hospital," said Dr. Gregory Mishkel, chief of the Division of Cardiology, Vice President of Cardiology Operations, and Co-director of Endeavor’s Cardiovascular Institute.

By making these moves, Gregory said it will allow them to have the resources needed to treat the sickest heart patients in one place.

"I think it is going to allow us to provide more efficient, higher quality, more cost-effective care and allow us to survive in a very tight labor environment as well," he said.

Resources like 3D printers that make exact models of a patient's heart based off their CT scan.

Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg, an interventional cardiologist at Endeavor Health, used this technology last fall to help correct an arterial fibrillation, or an abnormal heart rhythm, for 87-year-old Laverne Sams.

"After Dr. Rosenberg came in and explained what he was going to do and how he was going to do it, why it had to be done and so forth, he put me so at ease that I wasn’t frightened anymore," Sams said.

One heart procedure can be scary, let alone having two in four months.

Rosenberg performed Sams's second procedure in September after she went for a scheduled checkup. That’s when they discovered there was still a small crescent-shaped opening in her left arterial appendage.

"When patients have arterial fibrillation, they can form blood clots in their left arterial appendage, which is an outpouching of the left arterial of the heart," Rosenberg said.

And that could cause a stroke.

"Once we found out she has a gap around her device, and we were thinking about closing it, we had to figure out what type of device would close it best," Rosenberg said.

Given the location and shape of the gap, Rosenberg said it was challenging trying to figure out which devices would work best in Laverne's case.

"It’s very beneficial to be able to have the 3D model in our hands beforehand so we can practice with these different devices. It makes the procedure safer and more efficient," he said.

This hybrid lab room is yet another tool the institute has to make procedures safer and more efficient. It’s equipped with a robotic arm that has an X-ray mounted on it.

"The hybrid labs allow us to do the most sophisticated types of procedures where you’re combining surgical talents and endovascular talents," Mishkel said.

Which means, doctors don’t need to move a patient off the operating table to get any images they may need if a complication occurs during a procedure.

Another important feature of the Cardiovascular Institute is simply its location.

"By being located so close to O’Hare [International Airport], there’s the opportunity to becoming a regional referral center, and we will have access to a helicopter pad located on site here," Mishkel said.

Sams lives in Barrington, not too far from where the Cardiovascular Institute just opened up. How is she doing six months later?

"I’m feeling great, and I guess I’ll be here another 87 years," she said.

In its first year, Endeavor estimates it will perform about 5,000 heart procedures, everything from open-heart surgery to coronary stents to ablations.