Health, Mind & Body • 1D
www.crossville-chronicle.com • Tuesday, January 27, 2015
HEALTH M IN D &
BODY
A HEALTHIER, HAPPIER YOU
CMC, Parkwest teams put their hearts into work At Cumberland Medical Center, it took just minutes for Parkwest Medical Center interventional cardiologist Robert Martyn, MD, to place the stent that opened up Scott Amis’ clogged right coronary artery. But the journey to make it happen in Crossville began months before the Fairfield Glade resident even knew he had heart problems. Even before the public announcement of Cumberland Medical Center’s merger with Covenant Health, the wheels were in motion to bring angioplasty to the Crossville hospital as integration teams were formed to assess needs and plan projects across clinical and operational areas. With development of a non-emergency interventional cardiology program receiving priority, it was not surprising that Covenant Health’s Parkwest Medical Center, with more than 130 years of combined experience in its
Stephen Marietta, MD
Robert Martyn, MD
cath lab, would lead the way. The Knoxville hospital has been doing heart stents since 1993 and now does an average of 1,400 a year. Parkwest interventional cardiologist Nicholaos Xenopoulos, MD, who performs about 200 of those heart stents each year, was at the forefront of the effort, meeting with Cumberland staff, reviewing protocols and consolidating equipment. “It involved a lot of staff training and equipment for Cumberland to make sure things were safe,” said Dr.
Samuel Ong, MD
Martyn. “Even though we didn’t anticipate having any complications, Parkwest had made preparations in case rapid transport was needed.” Once performed only in larger hospitals with cardiac surgery backup, the heart stenting guidelines by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association were relaxed in 2012 to permit low-risk cardiac stenting in community hospitals such as Cumberland Medical Center. The ACC did not,
Ayaz Rahman, MD
Vianney Villaruz, MD
however, relax training requirements. Drs. Martyn, Xenopoulos and their colleagues, Stephen Marietta, MD, and Ayaz Rahman, MD, adhered to ACC guidelines as they determined the proficiency level of the CMC staffers who have been reporting to Parkwest twice a week since January for ongoing training. “There are certain national criteria for doing angioplasty without surgical standby,” said Dr. Martyn. “The main issue was having the Cumberland staff over to Parkwest
Nicholaos Xenopoulos, MD
to upgrade their training, doing more cases, getting involved in angioplasty — not just the heart catheterizations - and getting the staff more capable. The cath lab staff also has to do so many procedures to be safe, and the hospital itself has to have appropriately trained nurses for care afterwards. So Cumberland just went through the process of making everything as safe as possible for the patient.” On the morning of July 24, that training paid off as the teams from CMC and Parkwest joined Dr.
Martyn in the Crossville hospital operating room to perform the angioplasty on Scott Amis. As of Oct. 31, 10 additional patients have had 15 stents placed at the Crossville hospital. Meanwhile, Dr. Vianney Villaruz and Dr. Samuel Ong, cardiologists in Crossville, say getting the first stent “under their belts” was good for the Cumberland team for a number of reasons. “It helped develop the confidence of the staff and the confidence of the community,” Villaruz said. “It provides a sense of security that we can take care of interventional cases here in Crossville and it makes the staff aware that we are capable of doing that. It increases our level of confidence in taking care of sicker patients. That’s part of the plan.” Tim Hall, Parkwest cath lab manager, sees only good things ahead for See hearts page 5D