Picture of- (left to right): Karen Williams, Cary Bailey, Gene Honn, Kim Guetersloh

Strong Hearted Affiliation

Pictured (left to right): Karen Williams, Cary Bailey, Gene Honn, Kim Guetersloh

Du Quoin, Illinois - April 19, 2012 - Gene Honn, Director of Development at Southern Illinois Healthcare and Kimberly Guetersloh, SIH Grant Researcher, recently toured Marshall Browning Hospital and presented the facility with four updated defibrillator monitors. The monitors will provide increased dependability and safety when patients are receiving cardiac and critical care.

A defibrillator is a portable, electronic device that delivers an electrical shock to the heart through the chest to restore the normal heart rhythm. The monitors are very similar to the monitors used at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale where they receive STAT heart patients from Marshall Browning Hospital. The STAT heart program's goal is to increase survival for residents of the community in the event of a heart attack. The program is constantly striving to decrease the amount of time that a blocked heart artery will cause heart damage. The continuity of monitoring systems increases the ease of transferring care at a fast pace.

Marshall Browning Hospital Nurse Practitioner/Hospitalist, Cary Bailey, MSN, ACNP-BC, spent 11 years working in the cardiac catheterization lab at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale. She states "having an MI is a frightening experience. A patient having chest pain presents to the Emergency Room and is usually suffering with other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and often the feeling that their life is in danger. Once a balloon angioplasty or stenting procedure is done to the blocked artery, heart attack patients have almost instant relief of their pain and associated symptoms. This relief to the patient is a wonderful sight to see, and also knowing that the damage to the heart muscle has stopped is a relief to the cath lab team. Any advantage to decreasing the time to balloon angioplasty or stent placement saves heart muscle. Having similar equipment helps us because we only have to transfer monitor connections."

Karen Williams, RN, BSN, Director of the Emergency Department at Marshall Browning Hospital, added "we are very appreciative of SIH's gracious donation of cardiac monitors with defibrillating and pace-making capabilities. The new monitors can be used on patients of every size and age. Being a small hospital requires a lot of equipment sharing at different times and could pose a problem on an extremely high volume day with multiple potentially critical patients in the hospital, in addition to the normal daily operations of all the clinical departments. It is unrealistic to think that small hospitals can afford to purchase extra equipment, which costs thousands of dollars, to utilize during those infrequent situations. Our goal is to always deliver safe quality care just as it is for SIH or any other facility. With SIH's help, we will now be able to do that much easier."

The affiliation between Marshall Browning Hospital and Southern Illinois Healthcare continues to open new doors for a strong partnership that will benefit patients and families of Perry County.