Jeff Kiel, 67, of Manitowoc, is down to the healthiest weight he has been since college. After a heart attack in May 2025, Jeff made changes that helped him feel healthier than he has in years. He committed to low-impact exercise for an hour a day and changed his diet by reducing fat and salt. He accomplished this, in large part, thanks to the support and education from his care team at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital in Manitowoc.
“It feels great to be so fit,” Jeff said. “I have built so much confidence in what my body can do.”
Expert Cardiac Catheterization Care Close to Home
On May 2, 2025, Jeff and his Sandy stopped at a fundraiser near their home, and Jeff ate a hamburger. Shortly after eating, he experienced what felt like indigestion pain. Then, he started to sweat. Jeff asked his Sandy to drive him to Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital. She took him to the emergency department, and he was quickly diagnosed with a heart attack, then treated in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. The cath lab specializes in minimally invasive catheter-based procedures for the heart. Catheters are long, narrow tubes that can easily pass through a blood vessel in the leg or arm to access the arteries that supply blood to the heart. Jeff needed two catheter-based procedures over several days to place stents that would open up his blocked arteries.
“Life flashes by you,” Jeff said. “With my symptoms, what I was going through would have been easy to miss. I hope people will listen to their bodies when they feel something is not right and go in to get checked.”
The cath lab at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital is known for its experienced team and high-quality indicators, including a door-to-balloon time that consistently beats the target standard set by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. The “door-to-balloon-time” is the amount of time between when a patient first arrives at the hospital to the when they receive the treatment needed to open a blocked blood vessel. The national standard is 90 minutes, but the team at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial averages 30 minutes. In some cases, the time is as low as 15 minutes.
“We are a team of skilled and compassionate people with very specific training to be able to treat our cath lab patients,” said Daniel Downey, RN, CCRN, RCIS at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital. “It is a big advantage to our community to have this level of expertise and care so close to home. We also collaborate closely with the cath lab teams at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee and ThedaCare Regional Medical Center in Appleton. We are all part of the same integrated health system, so we have strong relationships, excellent transfer agreements in place and access to the highest levels of cardiac care.”
Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital, in affiliation with the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network, is the recognized leader and largest provider of comprehensive health care services in Manitowoc County.
Better Outcomes With Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation
Downey, who has been a nurse in the cath lab at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital for 26 years, was on the care team that performed Jeff’s interventions. The team referred Jeff to the hospital’s intensive cardiac rehabilitation program.
“We highly recommend cardiac rehabilitation to our patients because there is a clear statistical advantage in the outcomes for people who have had stenting procedures and then opt to participate in a cardiac rehabilitation program,” Downey said.
According to data from Million Hearts, a national initiative led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiac rehabilitation can lower the risk of death from a heart problem by 47%. It also has been shown to reduce the risk of future heart problems and decrease the risk of hospital readmissions after a heart issue.
Pritikin Program for Successful Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation
Within two weeks of his stents being placed, Jeff started intensive cardiac rehabilitation at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital. The program is designed around the Pritikin Program, which means it is an outpatient-based program focused on regular exercise, heart-healthy nutrition and a healthy mindset. Patients typically attend in small groups of eight or less and work with a multidisciplinary team made up of clinical exercise physiologists, registered nurses, registered dietitians and healthy mindset experts. The program is designed to be attended three times a week for 12 weeks. Each session is a combination of exercise and education and lasts a total of about 90 minutes.
“Every patient receives a tailored exercise program that is specifically designed around their goals and abilities,” said Tammy Riebe, BS ACSM-RCEP, clinical exercise physiologist at Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital. “Our program offers weekly cooking demonstrations to educate our patients on heart-healthy eating, and all of our sessions are designed to help our patients build habits to reduce their cardiovascular risk factors.”
People may qualify for intensive cardiac rehabilitation if they experienced a heart attack, have stable angina or chronic heart failure or if they had certain heart procedures, such as a coronary artery bypass graft, a heart valve repair or replacement, a coronary artery stenting or angioplasty or a heart transplant.
“The program is highly individualized to each patient,” Riebe said. “When a patient enters the program, we begin by working together to set goals specific for them. These goals are reviewed monthly to assess progress. The program is most successful when people are highly motivated to make lifestyle changes, but the team meets patients where they are — progress is always possible.”
Building a Healthy Lifestyle Through Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation
For Jeff, the goal setting and tracking by the intensive cardiac rehabilitation team kept him motivated. As the weeks went on, he said he learned so much about how to live a healthy life after a heart attack.
“I liked seeing my progress and felt inspired to challenge myself week to week,” Jeff said. “I wanted to understand how carefully I had to live, what my body was capable of and how I could push myself,” Jeff said. “Can I run? Can I lift weights? How can I prevent another heart attack? Now I know.”
Jeff finished the 12-week program and lost 25 pounds. He has since stuck to his exercise habit of walking 60 minutes or more a day, outdoors or on a treadmill. He also changed how he seasons his food, which has influenced how he and his wife cook and what they eat. One year later, Jeff lost an additional ten pounds, losing a total of 35 pounds.
“It has been an incredible recovery; I feel the best I have felt in a long time.”
Learn More About Heart Care Close to Home
From emergency heart care and cardiac catheterization to intensive cardiac rehabilitation, Froedtert Holy Family Memorial Hospital provides comprehensive heart care close to home.
Learn more about heart care: Heart and Vascular | Holy Family Memorial
