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no. 1 - cleveland clinic

Cleveland Clinic is located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Reasons to Go There for Heart Care
Cleveland Clinic’s emphasis on quality is most evident in its efforts to reach out and educate patients and the greater community about heart health and heart care. Of note, particularly in this digital age, is the Cleveland Clinic’s use of technology. The hospital provides a regular Web chat with physicians on a variety of specialized topics (click here for a schedule of upcoming chats). Through the e-Cleveland Clinic, patients can track their medical information online and submit questions. The health information center offers educational programs on some heart-care basics. In addition, informative podcasts (on topics from heart failure to abnormal heartbeat) provide more learning opportunities.

Cleveland Clinic offers a Heart and Vascular Institute for treating people with cardiovascular ailments. The institute also has a dedicated Women’s Cardiovascular Center, which includes gender-specific symptom checks, risk assessment, and advice for dealing with hormones and heart health.

Doctors at Cleveland Clinic rank among the best in the country: In 2006, 82 clinic physicians were listed in the America’s Top Doctors directory. Last year, more than 235,000 patients visited Cleveland Clinic’s heart center. Doctors performed 7,912 heart surgeries, ranging from heart transplants (76) to open heart surgery (3,537).

The clinic also has a history of technical innovation—it was the first to perform a coronary angiograph in 1958. The hospital started a commercial arm, CCF Innovations, to make its medical and technological inventions available to a larger number of people. Each year, Cleveland Clinic averages about 140 inventions. In addition, the clinic hosts an annual Medical Innovations Summit for the sharing and implementation of new ideas.

Cleveland Clinic is focused on transparency in regard to patient outcomes. Typically, transparency is a sign of a hospital’s willingness to track performance, often with an eye toward identifying areas that perform below expectations. Each year, the clinic makes public the patient outcomes for cardiovascular health and surgery. These outcome statements function as a sort of “state of the union” for the Heart and Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic and are available to read and download via the hospital’s Web site.

Making News
In May 2007, researchers at Cleveland Clinic found a disturbing link between the type 2 diabetes drug Avandia, and the occurrence of heart attack and cardiovascular death. Reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine led to a national outcry for greater transparency in drug studies. The lead researcher of the study, Steven Nissen, M.D., chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic, was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2007.