Cherokee Health Partners

Description of Program 

Tahlequah City Hospital and the Cherokee Nation joined forces to fight the growing epidemic of heart disease among Native Americans. From this union, Cherokee Health Partners was born. The Cherokee Nation tribe serves 14 counties and nearly 117,000 Native Americans in northeast Oklahoma. The leadership of both the Cherokee Nation and Tahlequah City Hospital realized they could offer quality care and improved services to both communities if they worked together. This collaboration has overcome racial boundaries in healthcare and enhanced local access to quality care for the Cherokee population.

Through this partnership, a cardio imaging center and two new Siemens Gamma Cameras, called E-cams, have been installed in the radiology department at Tahlequah City Hospital. These machines can perform a variety of nuclear scans including thyroid, lung and kidney; however, 70 percent of the scans performed by Cherokee Health Partners are related to the heart. 

This collaboration opened the door to “big city” care in the rural 100-bed hospital. Administrators at Tahlequah City Hospital knew that to make an impact they would have to create an entire center specializing in heart care. This was accomplished by partnering with cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons. This partnership created Northeast Oklahoma Heart Center. 

In addition to nuclear medicine, rural Tahlequah now offers the Cherokee population a catheterization lab and heart procedures that are surpassing other heart centers in the nation.

Objectives 

Leaders at Tahlequah City Hospital and the Cherokee Nation recognized the need for advanced cardiology services in Tahlequah. Their hope was to create a heart center that would surpass all others, thereby allowing patients to receive quality care with all the comforts of home. Previously, patients needing these services were sent to other hospitals more than an hour away. This created a hardship on the patients and their families as it required additional time off work, unfamiliar physicians and limited visitor access. Cherokee Health Partners allows patients to remain close to home and still receive quality health care. 


Target Audience

In addition to culture and tradition, Native Americans share a high rate of heart disease. As the capital of the Cherokee Nation, the majority of Tahlequah’s residents are Native American. Of Cherokee county’s 43,000 residents, 16,000 are Cherokee. The Oklahoma State Department of Health statistics showed that between 2001 and 2003, the leading cause of death in Cherokee County, where Tahlequah is located, was heart disease. Therefore, Tahlequah City Hospital, the Cherokee Nation and Northeast Oklahoma Heart Center began targeting Native Americans suffering from heart disease in Cherokee county. The intent was to improve the services offered to this minority group and increase their quality of life.

Results/Outcomes/Achievements 

Offering cardiac services in Tahlequah has shown a tremendous impact on the community. Since its inception in 2004, Cherokee Health Partners has served more than 3,700 patients. The rural hospital also offers air ambulatory service, a state of the art catheterization lab, cardiovascular and thoracic procedures, a cardiac care unit and a cardiac rehabilitation unit. 

As of 2007, all treatment and evaluation modalities were offered. These modalities compete with, and are often better than, any other facility in the world. The latest statistics speak for themselves. 

In thoracic procedures the heart center performed 78 procedures with only one death. That translates into a mortality rate of 1.3%, compared to the national average of 3-5%.
The center completed more than 100 permanent pacemaker operations with no deaths, making the mortality rate 0%. The nation’s average is 1%. 

The heart center has performed more than 227 major vascular surgeries, with only one death, making the mortality rate 0.4%. The national average mortality rate is 3-5%.
The center has completed 311 major endovascular procedures. Once again, they performed these without one death while the national average is 3%. 

Twenty-five endograft endovascular repairs of abdominal aortic aneurysms were performed. Once again, the heart center reported no deaths as a result of the surgery. The national average is 5%. 

Finally, the heart center has performed more than 60 open-heart surgeries. Based on a scale, the center’s mortality rate for these procedures should be 6%; however, their actual mortality rate is 4.6%. 

Based on the procedures listed above, the center had 5 deaths total, but if the center were just average, they would have had 39 more deaths based on national averages. This makes the center’s mortality rate only 10% of the national average, and that is with a population that has higher rates of heart disease and other complications like diabetes. 

By creating an excellent heart center in the middle of a community riddled with heart disease, Tahlequah City Hospital and the Cherokee Nation are saving the lives of Native Americans one procedure at a time. 

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