UnitedHealth Designates Coachella Valley Medical Center’s Heart Center as a Cardiac Specialty Center
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (December 29, 2005) – Coachella Valley residents now have another reason to take heart—a local medical center is ranked among the top in the nation for cardiac care. Desert Regional Medical Center was recently designated as a UnitedHealth Premium Cardiac Specialty Center for exceeding nationally recognized standards of care.
“This distinction validates our commitment to providing the most advanced and high quality cardiac care to the communities we serve,” said C. Barry Dykes, CEO of Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs. “With heart disease the nation’s leading killer, our cardiac team of physicians, nurses, and rehabilitation specialists are very proud of this achievement.”
UnitedHealth’s criteria for excellence in cardiac care was developed after receiving input from a panel of leading independent cardiology experts and published guidelines from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, American College of Cardiology, North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology and The Leapfrog Group, a coalition of more than 150 organizations that provide healthcare benefits. The standards measure staff experience, breadth of care, depth of care, emergency care and data managing and reporting.
To meet the benchmark set by UnitedHealth, facilities must have staff who performed a minimum number of cardiac surgeries and invasive cardiology procedures during the previous year, proven excellence in a vast array of cardiac specialties such as diagnostic procedures, surgery and interventional procedures, have staff who can respond to an emergency within a designated amount of time and have a system for tracking patient outcomes and the number of procedures performed. The UnitedHealth Premium program conducts annual reviews to measure healthcare facilities.
ABOUT DESERT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
Desert Regional Medical Center, part of Tenet California, is a 394-bed acute care facility located at 1150 N. Indian Canyon Road in Palm Springs. Founded in 1951, the hospital’s Richards Emergency/ Trauma Services is the Coachella Valley’s only designated trauma center servicing more than 800 miles to the Arizona border. In addition, the medical center offers a vast array of specialty services, including the Comprehensive Cancer Center; the Women and Infant Center; the area’s only Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Maternal Fetal Medicine Center for high-risk pregnancies; the Bariatric Specialists program; the Institute of Clinical Orthopedics and Neurosciences; the Cardiovascular Institute of Palm Springs, the valley’s only acute inpatient rehabilitation unit; Hospice of the Desert Communities, offering both inpatient and outpatient hospice services; the Nabisco Dinah Shore Wellness Center; Health Key Plus senior program and Healthy Beginnings maternity program. This highly dedicated facility has been featured in “Champions of Industry” on the Discovery Channel. Desert Regional Medical Center is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency. To learn more about these and other services at Desert Regional Medical Center visit www.desertmedctr.com