CHI St. Vincent Heart Institute’s Thomas Rayburn, MD, and Lynn Bass, RN, Awarded for Contributions to Heart Research

CHI St. Vincent Heart Institute’s Thomas Rayburn III, MD, and Clinical Research Coordinator Lynn Bass, RN, have received awards for their contributions to the PROACT Xa clinical trial and high-priority heart care research. The Heart Institute is working with the cardiac and vascular surgery company CryoLife, Inc. on a trial to answer vital clinical questions in the care of heart patients who receive mechanical heart valves.

“Our role in this important research is indicative of CHI St. Vincent’s healing ministry and commitment to delivering the most advanced, compassionate care to our communities across Arkansas which suffer from a high prevalence of cardiac disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes,” said Rayburn.

CHI St. Vincent was the first participating research partner to enroll a patient in the randomized, clinical trial which will include approximately 1,000 patients across the U.S. and Canada. The research is part of a Linked Clinical Research Centers seven-year initiative through the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN), part of the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The CHI St. Vincent Heart Institute announced in August of 2019 that it would partner with Penn Medicine as one of five qualified institutions nationwide to participate in the research program in order to accelerate high-priority clinical research efforts related to heart surgery and implement novel approaches into surgical practice.

11/23/2020