RHC: Holy Cross Hospital

Contact: Sister Sally Maloney
Telephone: (716)-828-2750

Advancements in research and technology play a vital role in the progress of health care, allowing organizations like the Catholic Health System to greatly improve the quality and scope of care provided in all settings.

Breast Cancer

In 1998, CHS and a local private physician group received a $180,000 grant from New York State to coordinate a three-year research initiative to improve outcomes and quality of care in the detection of breast cancer. The goal is to increase survival through the development of improved quality measurement and increased early detection of the disease, which now affects one in nine women nationally, up from one in twenty during the 1940s and one in fifteen during the 1960s.

The Catholic Health System’s focus in this valuable research initiative is based at Sisters Hospital, a member organization of the Catholic Health System. Sisters Hospital, which serves residents of Buffalo and the city’s northern suburbs, is Western New York’s leading hospital for breast cancer surgery. More than 45% of the 1,100 breast cancer surgeries in this area and more than 4 percent of cases in the entire state are performed at that site annually. In addition, this Catholic Health System hospital became certified as a community cancer center by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer in 1997, making it one of only two hospitals in Western New York to hold "certified" status with the College.

Stroke

Nationwide, over half a million people suffer from strokes annually. And the Buffalo area, which has the highest death rate of heart attack in the state, also consistently has a high rate of stroke mortality.

CHS is integrally involved in the research and treatment of stokes through the use of a series of drugs categorized as Tissue Plasminogen Activators (TPA). Better known as "clot busters," TPA can greatly improve the outcome for patients with moderate strokes, if it is administered within three hours of the stroke’s occurrence. On average, 12 percent of stroke victims have a better chance of avoiding permanent physical defects and another 12 percent have a chance of remaining fully independent.

A new genre of drugs called "brain savers," prolong the life of a stroke victim’s brain while waiting for clot busting agents to dissolve the clot and restore blood flow to the brain. Initial results from drug research with these agents together have shown favorable results.