The New Jersey Heart Institute at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center has opened a new Heart Failure Center, an outpatient clinic designed to improve and maintain the quality of life for patients with this complex condition, announced Alexander J. Hatala, President/CEO of the Lourdes Health System.

As a regional leader and the largest provider of cardiac services in southern New Jersey, Lourdes will offer state-of-the-art technologies, medical therapies, comprehensive education and complementary approaches to help patients live longer, healthier lives, according to Jan Weber, M.D., Medical Director of the New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes. "Heart failure is one of our nation's most serious health conditions with more than 300,000 deaths nationally each year," said Dr. Weber. "Almost 5 million people in the United States suffer heart failure, and 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart failure is one of the leading causes of hospitalization.

The goal of the Lourdes Heart Failure Center is to:

• improve the patients' and their families' ability to manage the disease to avoid crisis situations;
• reduce trips to the emergency room;
• reduce frequent hospitalizations and lengths of stay;
• improve patients' quality of life;

"There is no cure for heart disease, but the quality of life and life expectancy of persons with heart failure can be improved with early diagnosis and treatment," said Dr. Weber. Lourdes will provide a highly individualized treatment plan working in conjunction with the patient's cardiologist or family physician. Services are available to patients beginning Monday, January 8. For more information or to inquire about services, contact Ann B. Townsend, R.N. M.S.N., Nurse Practitioner, at 856-668-8888. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center is a regional referral center, known for providing the most sophisticated levels of care. Sponsored by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, N.Y., Lourdes is a 410-bed teaching hospital. Specialty services include The New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes, one of the largest providers of cardiac services in the Delaware Valley; the Lourdes Stroke Center; the Regional Perinatal Center for high-risk mothers and infants; the Lourdes Regional Rehabilitation Center; the Southern New Jersey Regional Dialysis Center and the Center for Organ Transplantation providing kidney, pancreas and liver transplants. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center is part of the Lourdes Health System. It is a member of Catholic Health East, a health system with 31 hospitals on the East Coast.