The gateway to the
Perelman Heart Institute, a dramatic, new
five-story public atrium in the Hospital’s
Greenberg Pavilion, functions as a “medical
town square” complete with a
patient-friendly welcome center, a clinical
trials enrollment center, and an interactive
education resource center that includes the
latest medical information on heart disease.
Medical concierge staff provides
up-to-the-minute information on patient
status as well as beepers for family
members, allowing them to keep in touch even
if they step away from the Institute.
The public space was
designed by the architecture firm Pei Cobb
Freed & Partners. Patients will also
be able to access the Perelman Heart
Institute via the Internet from the comfort
of their own home to find physicians, make
appointments, learn about clinical trials
and get up-to-date information on the latest
innovations in cardiovascular health.
Although women are twice as likely as
men to die after suffering a heart attack,
until recently cardiovascular health was
primarily considered a man’s issue. As a
result, women are much less likely to seek
treatment when they experience a cardiac
incident, often because they fail to
identify the symptoms until it is too late.
The Perelman Heart Institute will bridge
this gender gap in information and outcome.
Outreach to women will be a particular focus
of the Hospital’s ongoing efforts to educate
the community about preventative measures
against this deadly disease.
“I am pleased that the
opening of this state-of-the-art Institute
at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell will
result in even better cardiac care for
patients today and in the future,” said Mr.
Perelman. “Especially important is the
Institute’s focus on women’s health
— doing more, through education, to
prevent women from developing heart disease
and, when necessary, ensuring that they
receive the finest available care. It is
critical that women’s heart health issues
receive the attention and resources they
deserve.”
“Ron
Perelman’s remarkable gift is allowing our
highly skilled physicians and researchers to
build on an already strong foundation,
establishing new standards of quality care
and a new concept of what is possible for
patients and their families,” said Dr.
Pardes. “The Institute is led by a
stellar medical team, who
have an international
reputation of performing cutting edge
surgery and cardiological care, upholding
the most exacting standards for the benefit
of our patients. They are poised to train
the next generation of heart specialists and
explore new boundaries in medicine.”
The Heart
Institute will be led by O. Wayne Isom,
M.D., chairman and Terry Allen Kramer
Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and
Cardiothoracic Surgeon-in-Chief, and Bruce
Lerman, M.D., H. Altschul Master Professor
of Medicine, Chief of the Division of
Cardiology and Cardiologist-in-Chief. Over
his career of 30 years, Dr. Isom has been
instrumental in training over 50
cardiothoracic surgeons, and under his
supervision, the cardiothoracic surgeons at
NewYork Presbyterian-Weill Cornell have
performed almost 30,000 procedures with some
of the best results in the country. Dr.
Lerman serves as Director of the
Electrophysiology Laboratory, is a recipient
of an Established Investigator’s Award from
the American Heart Association and has been
awarded NIH grants for his study of the
cellular and molecular mechanisms of right
ventricular tachycardia.
Dr. Holly Andersen,
assistant professor of medicine and
assistant attending physician and a leading
authority on preventive cardiology, serves
as the Institute’s Director of Education and
Outreach, overseeing patient education,
community outreach and preventive efforts
with the goal of raising awareness about the
risks of heart disease and helping people
adopt healthier lifestyles through
education.
NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital’s cardiology and cardiac surgery
program consistently ranks among the top ten
in the country according to USNews & World
Report “America’s Best Hospitals” survey,
and has among the lowest mortality rates in
the nation for patients diagnosed with heart
failure and heart attack. Interventional
cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons at
the hospital are helping lead the PARTNER
trial, the world’s only randomized
controlled study of a transcatheter aortic
heart valve. This innovative approach
replaces patients’ heart valves without open
heart surgery and has the potential to save
thousands of lives of patients with no other
therapeutic options.
Last year, it was
announced that Mr. Perelman,
chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings
Inc., had made a $50 million gift to the
Medical Center to be equally divided between
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill
Cornell Medical College, in support of
health care in New York City and around the
world.
For more information
on the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute,
visit
www.nypheart.org/perelman .
NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital/
Weill Cornell Medical Center
NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center,
located in New York City, is one of the
leading academic medical centers in the
world, comprising the teaching hospital
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and Weill
Cornell Medical College, the medical school
of Cornell University. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill
Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient,
ambulatory and preventive care in all areas
of medicine, and is committed to excellence
in patient care, education, research and
community service. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill
Cornell physician-scientists have been
responsible for many medical advances — from
the development of the Pap test for cervical
cancer to the synthesis of penicillin, the
first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and
birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial
for gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease,
the first indication of bone marrow’s
critical role in tumor growth, and, most
recently, the world’s first successful use
of deep brain stimulation to treat a
minimally conscious brain-injured patient.
NewYork-Presbyterian, which is sixth on the
U.S. News & World Report’s 2007 list of top
hospitals, consistently ranks as one of the
top hospitals in the country. Weill Cornell
Medical College — in its commitment to
global health and education — has a strong
presence in the countries of Qatar,
Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey.
Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is
the first U.S. medical college to offer its
medical degree overseas. For more
information, visit
www.nyp.org
and
www.med.cornell.edu .