Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center is proud to be a founding member and active participant in the Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group (NNECDSG), often just referred to as "the NNE."
The group was founded in 1987 to provide information about the management of cardiovascular disease in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This consortium is an inter-institutional model for the improvement of medical and surgical care.
The group adopted the following mission statement:
The Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group exists to develop and exchange information concerning the treatment of cardiovascular disease. It is a regional, voluntary, multi-disciplinary group of clinicians, hospital administrators, and health care research personnel who seek to improve continuously the quality, safety, effectiveness, and cost of medical interventions in cardiovascular disease.
The NNECDSG maintains registries for all patients receiving coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), and heart valve surgery. During the last 12 years, data on more than 150,000 consecutive procedures were collected and analyzed.
The group meets three times a year to review data, plan studies, and improve care. An executive committee composed of three representatives (an administrator, surgeon and cardiologist) from each institution and the director of the NNECDSG constitutes the administrative structure for the group.
NNECDSG members
Members include cardiothoracic surgeons in the region, as well as interventional cardiologists, administrators, operating room and cardiac ICU nurses, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, and scientists associated with the eight institutions that provide advanced cardiac care in this region.
The member institutions include:
- Catholic Medical Center, Manchester, New Hampshire
- Central Maine Medical Center, Lewiston, Maine
- Concord Hospital, Concord, New Hampshire
- Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire
- Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor, Maine
- Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington, Vermont
- Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine
- Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and their two affiliates: York Hospital, York, Maine, and Wentworth Douglass Hospital, Dover, New Hampshire