UND kicks off campaign to be designated a Cardiac Ready Campus

GRAND FORKS, N.D.—The UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS), in partnership with the UND College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines, UND Work Well, and Altru Health System, is pleased to announce the kick–off of the University’s campaign to be designated a “Cardiac Ready Campus” (CRC) by the North Dakota Department of Health (NDDH).

As part of its Cardiac Ready Community Project, the Health Department is encouraging North Dakota’s colleges and universities to bolster their cardiac event readiness and heart disease awareness programs. This includes educating faculty, staff, and students on the risk of heart disease, screening them for conditions such as hypertension, and training them in both CPR and use of automated external defibrillator (AED) devices.

The first official event in the Cardiac Ready Campus effort will be a heart health presentation by UND Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the SMHS, Joshua Wynne, MD, MBA, MPH. The presentation will take place at 10 a.m. in SMHS room E226 on Thursday, March 14 (weather permitting). Representatives from the SMHS Simulation Center will be on hand at the event to distribute information about hypertension and give blood pressure checks to attendees. The event is open to the public.

The campaign will focus on four distinct aspects of cardiac health and readiness: stroke, hypertension, heart attack, and CPR/AED training. To date, no college campus in North Dakota has earned the designation, making UND’s effort the first of its kind.

“The outcomes from an acute cardiac arrest vary widely, with the average nationwide survival rate being only about 10 percent,” added Dr. Bryan Delage, chair of the CRC committee and assistant professor in the SMHS Department of Family & Community Medicine. “But in some communities survival rates are as high as 60 percent. We’re hoping that through education, training, and community awareness we can improve the potential survival of such events in our campus community and within the city of Grand Forks as we work together to become more cardiac ready.”

# # #

Brian James Schill
Assistant Director, Office of Alumni & Community Relations
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
701.777.2733 direct | 701.777.4503 office
brian.schill@med.und.edu  |  med.und.edu