New Heart Clinic report card

Heart center at IRMC gets strong report

By JAMES KIRLEY jim.kirley@scripps.com March 1, 2007
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY —

A team of doctors from Duke University spent Wednesday examining heart surgery and angioplasty cases done during the first three months of operations at The Heart Center at Indian River Medical Center and delivered a glowing report to the hospital's Board of Directors. "The quality that you've achieved is not by mistake, it's by design," said Dr. Harry Phillips, medical director of the Duke Heart Network. "I want to compliment everyone involved in the process."

Duke University Health System is affiliated with IRMC. It helped develop the heart program and conducts ongoing quality reviews of results. The local program hired Dr. Cary Stowe as its medical director for cardiovascular surgery and Dr. Joel Greenberg as its director of interventional cardiology — procedures usually referred to as angioplasty. Both are veteran doctors with years of experience at other heart centers
Duke's Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery Dr. Peter Smith told IRMC directors Wednesday the first open heart surgery cases done locally by Stowe were more complex than might be expected at a new heart center. He added that Stowe's surgical experience made that possible.
"I don't think he's shied away from much at all," Smith said. He also predicted that, based on patient volumes to date, RMC's Heart Center could perform between 220 and 240 open-heart surgeries during its first year. High heart surgery volumes are widely considered important for maintaining the skills of surgical teams.
"It could be better," Smith said of surgery volume. "But we're well on the road."
Dr. Jimmy Tcheng, an inteventional cardiologist and medical director of Duke's Heart Center of Excellence program, said he was "extremely happy" about what he saw on Wednesday's visit.
"You, as an institution, are ahead of the game in terms of experience," Tcheng said, adding that Greenberg has helped IRMC off to a good start.
Phillips said that while many people feel there is an inherent advantage in academic medicine, hybrid programs such as the Duke/IRMC affiliation have their own merit.
"I think there is an advantage in community medicine," Phillips said.

HEART UNIT PUMPING
The Heart Center at Indian River Medical Center has been performing open heart surgeries since Nov. 6 and non-surgical angioplasty procedures to open blocked heart arteries since Nov. 27. The number of cases performed to date at IRMC are:
Open heart surgeries: 60
Non-surgical angioplasty procedures: 110
Heart Center patients who died at IRMC and up to 30 days after discharge: Zero
IRMC Marketing Department; oral report to IRMC Board of Directors by a team of Duke University doctors who conducted case reviews Wednesday.
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