Heart Failure Clinic
Help is a Phone Call Away
Patients can attend OSF Little Company of Mary's Congestive Heart Failure Clinic with a referral from their healthcare provider. To learn more about the referral process, call (708) 229-4278 (229-HART).
For the millions of people in the United States living with heart failure, managing the condition can be difficult. We recognize that people with heart failure need extra time, medical attention and education to help keep them healthy and out of the hospital.
To help, we’ve created the OSF Little Company of Mary Heart Failure Clinic and it’s already helping area patients live a better life.“
Multidisciplinary Team Benefits Patients
The clinic offers help from a multidisciplinary team of experts, including nurses with specialties in heart failure, diabetes and wound care, pharmacists, dieticians and others who are overseen by the primary care or consulting physicians. Patients attend the clinic as needed, sometimes multiple times a week.
A clinic pharmacist carefully reviews each patient’s medications to ensure they are appropriate and the patient is taking them correctly. A dietitian is consulted for dietary needs, which can help patients manage their condition. Nurses work with the patient’s primary care doctor to assure continuity of care for these complex patients, adjusting medications when necessary. They teach patients how to take their medications, monitor and manage their symptoms and, most importantly, recognize when they need to seek help.
Clinic Offers Needed Time, Attention
OSF Little Company of Mary opened the Heart Failure Clinic helps patients with severe heart failure, such as those who experience shortness of breath at rest or with minimal exertion. Because people with heart failure often experience a domino effect of symptoms when one complication leads to another many are in and out of the hospital frequently for treatment.
Heart failure often is a condition in which the heart’s pumping ability is weak. As a result, it’s unable to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. People can develop the condition as a result of a heart attack, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease or other factors.
Heart failure is a national problem, with approximately 25 percent of heart failure patients are readmitted to the hospital after discharge within just one month. Not only can this be costly for the patient, but it doesn’t prevent future problems.
Learn More
To learn more about the referral process, call (708) 229-4278 (229-HART).