CHI Mercy is redesignation as a Cardiac Ready Community

Information courtesy of TR Staff and CHI Mercy Hospital

CHI Mercy Hospital proudly announces that Valley City has been a cardiac ready community since 2017 and has just received re-designation status through February of 2027. Representatives share that this is a community goal that is not taken lightly. The Valley City Cardiac Ready Community works diligently, continuing to make large strides to improve the community’s survival from cardiac arrest and heart disease.

The Times-Record sat down with one of the team leaders, CHI Alana McClellan, to learn more about the importance of being a cardiac ready community. McClellan says she joins all at CHI Mercy Hospital in thanking the community for working together to insure that Valley City continues to remain a cardiac ready community. “It takes a whole community to be ready in preparing for a cardiac arrest. CPR care is so important as every minute someone goes without CPR care, their chance of survival goes down 10%. You can’t wait for the ambulance. Everyone (in the community) has to have the knowledge and confidence to do something to help. People need to be able to move forward in administering CPR in order to save their friends, family and loved ones who are in distress and in need of CPR. By the time ten minutes has passed, your chance of survival isn’t there anymore. That is why the community needs to be involved. Being a cardiac ready community allows us the ability to provide training and education through the hospital, City-County Health and local responders to make this happen.” She says.

CHI Mercy Hospital staff shares, “Our goal is to save lives! We have worked to improve survival from cardiac arrest and heart disease. Our community leaders have worked together to achieve the criteria for this designation from the North Dakota State Health Department. CHI Mercy Health, Barnes County ambulance, City County Health department, Sanford clinic, Essentia clinic, Barnes County dispatch, and Valley City State University representatives make up our core group. We just received our redesignation for another three years. Our community had to meet criteria in 9 different areas which demonstrate that our community is prepared to help patients in cardiac arrest.

We have concentrated on community awareness and education on heart attack, cardiac arrest, blood pressure control, and heart disease prevention. We have also provided education on how to do hands only CPR and use an AED as these are very important skills for all community members to have. If a person has a cardiac arrest, every single minute that goes by without CPR decreases the chance of survival by 10%. Using an AED is the only way to return a person’s heart rhythm to a survivable heart rhythm. Of course, prevention by eating healthy, exercising regularly, controlling your blood pressure, and not smoking is best!

We offer quarterly community CPR, AED, and first aid classes. If your business or group wants a CPR class or to learn more about CPR and how to use an AED, contact the hospital to find out more information on classes. We estimate that over ½ of our community has been educated on how to perform CPR.

Our team has worked very hard to place more than 50+ AED’s in Valley City and the surrounding areas and growing. Our community has added over 40 more AED’s available since 2017. City County Health leads our effort in AED’s. There is still a lower price available for AED’s so contact them if you are interested.

Controlling blood pressure is one of the key ways to prevent heart disease and strokes. High blood pressure is frequently called the “silent killer” because it doesn’t have symptoms but drastically increases your risk of death from heart disease or stroke. Our team has been available at community events to take blood pressures and has also provided education to local businesses that do blood pressure checks, such as dentist offices and chiropractors. City County health is open to do blood pressure checks as well as the clinics. It is encouraged for everyone to know their numbers. 120/80 is normal. Above that, you are at risk for heart disease. Do you know YOUR numbers??

In addition, 100% of the dispatchers know how to talk a caller through how to perform CPR and use an AED.

They also know where the AED’s in town are located so can direct callers to the closest AED. We are working on a system that is an app on your smart phone that can tell you where the AED’s are. All the police cars and most of the fire vehicles have an AED on-board.

The ambulance and hospital have protocols on how to care for a cardiac arrest patient as well as heart attacks and strokes. We work as a team to give our community members the best care that we can give. Each case is then reviewed to ensure the protocols are followed and identify opportunities to improve our processes.

We will continue to strive to keep our community and surrounding areas “Cardiac Ready” to improve survival from heart disease. Finally, we encourage EVERYONE in our community to GET INVOLVED to make our community the best it can be!”

McClellan encourages everyone to stop in to the CHI Mercy Hospital booth at the North Dakota Winter Show. CHI staff, and local emergency responders, will be available March 6-10, in the corner of the South Exhibit Building, providing instruction on how to do CPR, how to use an AED machine, along with free blood pressure checks.

In an emergency situation, CPR needs to be the first thing on your mind, not the last. The Times-Record, joins the community, in thanking all our First Emergency Responders, including CHI Mercy Hospital, for all they do to continue to keep our communities safe and healthy.