July 20 2005, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin-The Wisconsin Heart Hospital, recently earned five national awards for quality and service and the top prize in the nation for its inpatient cardiology/telemetry services.  The honors come from Professional Research Consultant (PRC), an independent firm dedicated solely to health care research-and a gold-standard benchmark for patient satisfaction in the U.S. Each year, PRC interviews more than 500,000 patients across the nation, and recognizes health care providers who earn the highest marks.

In 2005, The Wisconsin Heart Hospital earned a number of honors, including PRC’s Overall Top Performer Award, as the nation’s highest scoring nursing unit for inpatient cardiology/telemetry.  This honor is awarded to hospitals scoring at or above the 100th percentile for Overall Quality of Care in PRC’s national client database for the prior calendar year.

The hospital also received 5-Star Awards-scoring in the top 10 percent-for the following areas:  outpatient surgery, inpatient services, imaging services, and emergency department.

"The Wisconsin Heart Hospital is proud to deliver high-tech care in a truly unique environment designed to promote comfort, efficiency and outstanding outcomes," said Norma McCutcheon, the hospital’s president. "These awards publicly recognize this revolutionary standard of care-and what it means to patients."

The Wisconsin Heart Hospital is metro Milwaukee’s only single specialty heart hospital, featuring top cardiac specialists, cutting-edge treatments and a highly efficient setting.  It has consistently achieved "door-to-balloon time" - the time that it takes for a heart-attack patient to have an emergency angioplasty - of less than 60 minutes, compared with 90 minutes as the recommended standard for hospitals, McCutcheon said. The hospital has a 24-hour full service emergency department staffed by board-certified emergency physicians.

The streamlined design also allows patients to remain in the same private room throughout their stay, rather than being moved from surgical intensive care to a telemetry unit to a medical surgery unit.  Patients tell us this offers a more comfortable, less stressful experience when compared to traditional medical centers.

About The Wisconsin Heart Hospital

An exciting, new era in the delivery of specialized cardiovascular care arrived in Wisconsin with the opening of The Wisconsin Heart Hospital (TWHH) at 10000 West Blue Mound Road (across from the Milwaukee County Zoo) in Wauwatosa.

The partnership between cardiovascular, specialty physicians, the community, investors and Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare. has produced a 60-bed specialized care hospital dedicated to providing advanced and innovative cardiovascular medical and surgical services delivered in a unique acute-care and ambulatory setting. Offering a true patient and family-centered experience, TWHH’s facility design complements the evolving future of ambulatory cardiovascular care. The model was designed to improve upon conventional treatment paradigms and deliver a highly focused process resulting in:

· Shortened treatment times
· Reduced probability of higher procedure complexity
· Avoidance of post-procedural complications
· Hastened return of the patient to normal day-to-day activities

For more information about The Wisconsin Heart Hospital, its award-winning care and outstanding outcomes, log on to TWHH.org or contact Mary McIntosh at 414-778-7810.