Riverside Healthcare provides local stroke procedures with new neurointerventional system

KANKAKEE – Providing top healthcare procedures in the Greater Kankakee County area starts with the dedicated team at Riverside Healthcare.

From the person seated at the front desk to its president and CEO, Phil Kambic, they are all members of the team.

“It’s always about the team, the team, the team. That is very important,” Dr. Jehad Zakaria reiterated during an interview with members of the neurosurgical team that leads Riverside’s new neurointerventional biplane angiography system.

It is a $3 million medical imaging device that uses two X-ray sources and detectors to simultaneously capture high-resolution, three-dimensional images of blood vessels in the brain and spinal cord.

Riverside is a certified primary stroke center by DNV Healthcare, offering treatments for ischemic (blood clots or particles blocking blood vessels) and hemorrhagic (an artery in the brain leaks blood), Hiser said.

DNV Healthcare is an approved hospital accreditation organization through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

There are approximately 40 team members from the front-desk personnel to the neurosurgeons.

“Teamwork is everything. We cannot function without one another,” said nurse Reta Smolkovich, the clinical team lead/procedural care. She has worked at Riverside for the past 15 years.

The imaging device and teamwork are key reasons Riverside Healthcare is honored as the Daily Journal’s Progress 2025 Innovator in Healthcare.

“Riverside does a great job innovating and keeping people here for treatment. The administration and board members are open and welcome innovation,” said nurse Krystal Hiser, director of Perioperative & Interventional Services.

“So the types of patients that we’ll be treating specifically in this room is ischemic stroke, and then we’ll also be doing diagnostic and interventional procedures as more of a preventative care for stroke,” Hiser said.

“We can bring the patient in, we can image the structures of the brain and the blood vessels, and then we can do interventions after that.”

An ischemic stroke is where blood flow and oxygen have been reduced to a part of the body.

Since the end of February, the team has performed three procedures on local patients.

Allowing patients the opportunity to receive treatment locally is important to Riverside, Kambic said.

“We can give great tertiary care right here in Kankakee. And the people who come to us can stay in the area. It’s much less of a hardship for them. Much less a hardship on the patient,” he said.

Providing top care is a keystone for Riverside Healthcare.

“The key is giving comprehensive care to patients here. That is just what they need,” Zakaria said.

During an open house of the neurological biplane imaging suite in February, Zakaria discussed how these capabilities will facilitate faster evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of stroke and other neurovascular conditions.

In the case of stroke, time lost equals brain loss, so having this capability at Riverside can lead to fewer delays, better health outcomes, and the chance for people to receive treatment close to home, instead of having to be sent up to the city for treatment, Zakaria said.

For the past year, Zakaria was at Loyola University Medical Center as part of a fellowship learning how to operate with the new equipment.

Kambic said the need to be an innovator started with Riverside’s first president and CEO, Robert Miller.

“He added a lot of programs … Our behavioral unit, most hospitals don’t have that. Bob Miller saw that it was needed in our community,” Kambic said.

“There is in-patient rehab, we have our senior housing. Most hospitals don’t have all of those components. Bob Miller started all of that.”

Riverside’s second president and CEO, Dennis Millirons, furthered the hospital’s innovative side.

“Dennis Millirons started our clinics and employed physicians for them,” said Kambic, who is Riverside’s third and latest president and CEO.

“I’m the lucky one. I get to carry on some of that innovation.”

Kambic said from start to finish it took three years to get Riverside’s new neurointerventional biplane angiography system to fruition.

It started with doctors dedicated to treating patients with cutting-edge technology. From there it was discussed with Kambic, who took it to the board of directors. The talks turned to financing and construction, which took a year, he said.

More innovation is coming for Riverside in 2025.

Kambic said at the Bourbonnais campus, there is a new positron emission tomography (PET) imaging scan that uses a radioactive tracer to check for signs of cancer, heart disease and brain disorders.

Also new is a computed tomography (CT) scan, a medical imaging technique that uses X-rays and computers to create detailed cross-sectional images of the body, aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of various conditions.

These, too, will allow patients to stay local rather than heading to Chicago for tests.

Kambic was born and raised in Kankakee. He is proud of the roots he has here both personally and professionally.

He is pleased with what Riverside Healthcare brings to the community.

“We have world-class health care offered in Kankakee County,” he said.

For more information, visit riversidehealthcare.org.