The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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July 8, 2008

Our View: New Ulm heart study a benefit

A medical research project taking place in New Ulm over the next 10 years has fantastic and wide ranging implications to begin solving one huge health care problem: heart disease.

Allina Hospitals and Clinics believes a $100 million investment in heart research in New Ulm and several other locales may save lives and money in the long run. They’re hoping the people of New Ulm will help them prove it. It’s an ambitious and worthwhile project and one that may become a national template for reducing heart disease.

The 15,000 population city of New Ulm will be part of the $100 million multi-year study that will attempt to assess those with heart attack risk, and implement a program to prevent such attacks through education, community programs and total community-wide involvement.

Businesses will be asked to offer heart healthy restaurant choices, schools will be encouraged to emphasize physical activity and the city will be asked to offer open spaces and parks for such physical activity.

The goal: to prevent any and all heart attacks potentially brewing in the bodies of brat eating Germans or others in New Ulm.

It’s an ambitious project. In 2007, the New Ulm Medical Center treated 85 patients for heart attacks. Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Minnesota behind cancer. Allina and the city of New Ulm should be commended for taking part.

These kind of projects with the kind of commitment, money and community participation can be replicated every where else. The project may not stop every heart attack from happening in New Ulm, but if it reduces the number by 50 percent, or even 20 percent, the cost savings to the medical system would be gigantic. If it can be implemented at the national level, the savings are even larger.

New Ulm was chosen as a site because of its stable population and that 90 percent of the residents get their health care from Allina. The Allina system in New Ulm also has electronic records that will make it easy to track patient activities and monitor their heart health.

This project seems to be exactly the kind of effort the health care system needs to make in order to get control on spiraling health care costs. It also should be a reminder to consumers that having a healthy lifestyle can also help reduce those health care costs.

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