SPECIAL PROGRAM
Pulmonary hypertension team focuses on ICU care. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is an increasingly recognized but rare childhood disease with significant associated morbidity and mortality. If inadequately treated, patients with PH are at increased risk for anesthesia complications, profound hypoxemia with respiratory infections, or cardiac dysfunction and failure. As a result, pediatric cardiologist Sri Rao, MD, and pediatric pulmonologist Heather Staples, MD, with Palmetto HealthUSC Medical Group (part of Prisma Health), have teamed with fellow specialists, a pharmacist, nurses and social workers to establish a streamlined process for consults and follow-up visits for neonatal and pediatric ICU patients at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital–Midlands. This initiative was developed to increase team communication teams and improve care for this at-risk group. As the importance of pediatric PH has grown, national guidelines have been developed for appropriate diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. Using these guidelines and evidence-based medicine, Midlands’ Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension team will provide crucial services using both invasive and noninvasive testing and treatment modalities.
Heather Staples, MD, and Sri Rao, MD
the required specialty medications and providing social supports for this complex patient group.
Goals include coordinated inpatient consultations on potential new PH diagnoses, along with seamless, ongoing care for inpatients with PH. Additionally, the team will provide preoperative recommendations to help reduce PHassociated morbidity.
For more information on this initiative, please call Dr. Rao at 803-434-7940 (Pediatric Cardiology) or Dr. Staples at 803-434-2505 (Pediatric Pulmonology).
Outpatient care will focus on coordinated follow up with joint decision making on management between team members along with support from pharmacy and social work, all to help navigate the difficult process of obtaining
At Prisma Health Children’s Hospital–Upstate, the Pediatric Pulmonology team has offices in both Greenville and Spartanburg. To make a referral, call 864-454-5530 or 864-573-8732, respectively.
Welcome, Dr. Staples! A clinical assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia, Dr. Staples received her medical degree from Florida State University College of Medicine. She completed a residency in Pediatrics at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia, followed by a fellowship in Pediatric Pulmonology at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine. 9
