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Bellevue Hospital, New York.
As 20th century medicine advanced, despite the electrocardiogram and improved understanding of basic cardiovascular physiology, quantifiable chemical details about the way the heart works — in both health and disease — were long in coming.
An extraordinary series of experiments by Dickinson Richards and André Cournand in the 1940s, just as heart disease began to spike in industrialized countries, brought unprecedented precision to the diagnosis of heart and circulatory disease. With a research program that adapted an old tool (the catheter) and a hypermodern instrument (the fluoroscope), Richards and Cournand were able to make unprecedented measurements of blood flow from within the heart itself. Viewing the heart, lungs, and pulmonary circulation as an integrated system, they developed descriptions of hemodynamics that led to a new taxonomy of heart disease.
Pioneering work at the pulmonary-coronary laboratory at Bellevue Hospital, now part of America’s Essential Hospitals member NYC Health + Hospitals, overcame beliefs about invasive procedures and the human heart. This work opened the way to a wide variety of diagnostic and therapeutic uses for catheterization, including angiography, angioplasty, and stent implantation. With Werner Forssmann, Cournand and Richards were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956.
In a new podcast series by a physician at association member NYC Health + Hospitals, Beth Feldpush, DrPH, the association's senior vice president of policy and advocacy, unpacks the complex patchwork of payments that keep essential hospitals afloat.
learn more »In a Health Affairs Forefront commentary, the association's current, immediate past, and incoming board chairs say essential hospitals’ indispensable role, unique characteristics, and financial fragility argue for recognizing them as a distinct class in public health and policymaking.
learn more »The Federal Action Network (FAN) is a community that connects essential hospital advocates with other professionals interested in federal politics and policymaking. FAN offers advocates the opportunity to enhance their engagement with the legislative and regulatory issues that matter most to their hospitals.
learn more »America’s Essential Hospitals is the leading association and champion for hospitals dedicated to equitable, high-quality care for all, including those who face social and financial barriers to care. Since 1981, America’s Essential Hospitals has advanced policies and programs that promote health, health care access, and equity.
Essential Data: Our Hospitals, Our Patients – Results of America’s Essential Hospitals 2021 Annual Member Characteristics Survey
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