Adult Cardiology

Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute's heart failure practice uses a multidisiplinary approach to the evaluation and management of patients with heart failure. Our goal is to empower the patient to better care for themselves by improving compliance, patient understanding, and family support.

The key to our program remains cutting edge, individualized patient diagnosis and treatment provided by physicians in conjunction with clinical nurse coordinators. The program uses a team approach to delivering the most comprehensive heart failure management. A cardiologist specially trained in heart failure/transplant, nurse coordinators, a pharmacist, and a social worker work together to create the most effective and efficient treatment plan for each patient. Every detail of that treatment plan and its results are shared with the patient's primary care physician.

The treatment plan may include:

• Enrollment in the Heart Failure Program
• Drug assistance and education
• Home-care intravenous medication
• Dietary counseling
• Social assistance and refer to community services
• Outpatient infusion treatments

Our patients range from those who are asymptomatic to those in desperate need of cardiac transplantation. We believe that transplantation is a last resort and will do everything possible to avoid transplantation if possible.

Research has shown that patients enrolled in the Heart Failure Program have:

• Significantly fewer hospital admissions (as much as a 75 percent reduction amont the highest risk patients)
• Shorter hospital stays (up to a 29 percent reduction among patients who had to be readmitted)
• Improved heart function (as much as 46 percent)

A major focus of the Heart Failure Program is patient and family education. The program encourages patients to be active participants in their health care. Nurses are in frequent contact with patients to assess medication tolerance and compliance, signs and symptoms, and check on daily weights.

Another benefit provided by the Heart Failure Program is access to new drug therapy protocols. Carolinas Medical Center participates and collaborates in nationally and internationally recognized cardiac research studies. This provides the heart failure patients access to the most advanced therapies months, or even years, before they are readily available to the public.

Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute offers a new innovative procedure known as Surgical Ventricular Restoration (SVR). SVR is a surgical procedure to treat congestive heart failure caused by myocardial infarction (heart attack). Following a heart attack, scar or an aneurysm may develop resulting in an enlarged rounded heart that may lead to congestive heart failure (CHF). The goal of SVR is to restore the heart to a more normal size and shape, therefore improving function.

Watch for these signs of congestive heart failure:

• Shortness of breath caused by fluid in the lungs. This is the most common symptom. It usually occurs during exercise, but can occur during rest too.
• Coughing up pinkish, blood-tinged phlegm.
• Swelling (edema) of the legs, ankles and sometimes abdomen due to the buildup of excess fluid in the body's tissues. Weight gain often results.

Signs that show that blood is not being pumped efficiently include:

• Tiredness, weakness and the inability to exert oneself.
• Older individuals may experience confusion and impaired thinking.
• Pain in the arm or shoulder. It may be difficult to lift your arm or to pinpoint a place where the pain is localized.