U.S.News & World Report has ranked Cleveland Clinic #1 in America for heart care, 13 years in a row.

Cover Story
Mending Broken Hearts

The aortic valve is a stress point like no other in the body, and as people age, the valve can fail. The majority of surgeries to replace aortic valves are minimally invasive, but even those techniques can be too risky for some patients. Now, surgeons and cardiologists are exploring options that go beyond minimally invasive.

Features
Regaining Control

Just ask any one of the 13 million Americans with loss of bladder control: Urinary incontinence is inconvenient and embarrassing. The condition often goes untreated because people won’t talk about it, even with their doctors. But high-tech, minimally invasive surgical techniques are helping to restore some patients’ sense of freedom.

The Future of Medicine
Cleveland Clinic experts name the top 10 innovations transforming medicine in 2007. Cancer vaccines, asthma relief and a device that helps control depression make the list.

CC Profile
A Man of Influence
Steven Nissen, M.D., Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, talks about activism, drug safety and what it means to be named one of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine

Download Cleveland Clinic Magazine, Summer 2007

PDF format, 4MB, 25Pages.

A Better Patient Experience
A Letter to Our Readers from Delos M. Cosgrove, M.D., CEO and President

I was invited to Harvard Business School to discuss a case study on Cleveland Clinic. After a very positive and stimulating first session, a student at the second session raised her hand and said, “Dr. Cosgrove, my father needed mitral valve surgery. We knew about Cleveland Clinic and the excellent results you had. But we decided not to go because we heard you had no empathy there. We went to another hospital instead.”

The student then asked me: “Dr. Cosgrove, do you teach empathy at Cleveland Clinic?” The question left me speechless.

I’ve thought a great deal about this incident since then. Here at Cleveland Clinic, we’ve always positioned quality in terms of outcomes. But I have come to understand that there is more to quality healthcare than great outcomes.

There is the entire experience that patients have, from the moment they call for an appointment to the moment they arrive at the hospital — fearful and concerned — to the moment they get in their cars and drive away.

The patient experience encompasses many aspects of care, from the physical environment to the emotional. It is about having rooms that are clean. It is about having people who smile and greet patients at every corner of the hospital.

It is about communication and the expression of care and concern at times when they are most needed.

Sometimes we forget that patients feel cold in the operating room and could use a warm blanket. Or we forget that they might be hungry at a time when no food is being served. We can no longer do that. We must be aware of patients’ needs from the very moment they entrust us with their care. Everything we do must communicate competence, compassion and caring.

Patients today are savvy healthcare consumers. They judge healthcare providers not only on clinical outcomes, but also on the courtesy of their personnel, the convenience of their facilities and their ability to deliver excellent service. My goal is to create a patient experience that distinguishes us from all other providers — an experience that gives patients complete confidence that Cleveland Clinic is the best choice for their care.

To show just how committed we are to improving the patient experience, I recently created the new position of Chief Experience Officer and appointed Bridget Duffy, M.D., to the post. Dr. Duffy comes to us with a national reputation in humanistic medicine. She will work with our leadership to create and sustain a culture in which everyone at every level of Cleveland Clinic feels ownership of, and responsibility for, patient satisfaction.

One of the more immediate changes patients will begin seeing is in our hospital gowns. Anyone who has ever been a patient understands how vulnerable and exposed the traditional hospital gown can make you feel. We decided that was no longer acceptable. In June, we unveiled a new hospital gown that preserves patient dignity and modesty, yet is fully functional from the caregivers’ perspective. Patients have already told us that it is a vast improvement over the old one.

It is our duty to remember that empathy lies at the very heart of the healthcare profession. Remember the old family practitioners who, with black bag in hand, visited patients in their homes? Empathy was an important part of these doctors’ practice. The healthcare they provided, however, was limited in its scope. Since that time, we have in many ways become technocrats — putting empathy on the back burner and focusing more on the development and delivery of superior treatments. Now, our job is to swing the pendulum back to the middle so we can strike the proper balance between empathetic care and quality medical outcomes.

In the end, patients who come to Cleveland Clinic will judge us on the experience they have. Whether it is a confident and healing experience is up to us.

Delos M. Cosgrove

Visit Cleveland Clinic Official Website

Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit, multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation.

Today, Cleveland Clinic is one of the largest and most respected hospitals in the country.

At Cleveland Clinic, we provide our patients with cutting-edge advancements in coronary medicine, an impeccable surgical record and a world-renowned research team.

Let us care for your heart. Find the confidence to face any condition at clevelandclinic.org/heart or call 1-866-544-9616.

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