Heart and Vascular Service Line Aims High for 2022

By Beth Blank, director of service line strategy, women’s services and cardiovascular, and Robert Bulow, DO, system provider leader, cardiovascular

Premier Health’s heart and vascular service line is working toward four key strategies in 2022:

• Enhance sub-specialty distinctiveness and create strategies by cardiology division that are provider-led​
• Build outpatient capacity and patient access points in ambulatory settings to capture services shifting over to an outpatient experience​ and expanding outpatient capacity
• Grow our physician base and compete for volume and market share​
• Cultivate strategic partnerships with independent physicians, community groups and other service lines to accelerate growth​

Cardiac leaders have been identified within their sub-specialties and are working diligently on provider-led strategies that support operational infrastructures, process improvements, and growth initiatives to allow cross-collaboration among sub-specialties and better solidify the continuum of care for our patients.

In general, cardiology care is becoming more consumer-centric with patients wanting easy access and the ability to stay close to home or engage in telehealth opportunities. We are working with our teams to ensure we are supporting accessibility with respect to patient desires.

Premier Health also deployed a comprehensive consumer-facing marketing campaign centered on allowing patients to schedule their own heart CT. As a result, we are ahead 27 percent in CT screens compared to this time last year.

Additionally, we are working with our providers to create a patient-focused Afib clinic that is centrally located and focuses on the full treatment of Afib patients with all necessary components in one location.

Data tells us that we can anticipate a 10 to 15 percent increase in Afib patients over the next five years, and we are planning to be well-positioned to handle this surge.

There continues to be a focus on provider recruitment in general cardiology, electrophysiology (EP), and vascular. These additional providers will assist in creating more opportunities in outpatient services to further build our presence and increase capacity.

We also have a keen focus on maximizing internal and external relationships. Most recently, we have partnered with a nephrology group and the University of Cincinnati to be their provider of choice for renal transplant patients during their pre-admission testing and post discharge processes.

There are several exciting projects in the pipeline to continue to build upon our cardiovascular services, and we appreciate the work each of you is doing to provide better care for our patients, as well as each other.

Back to the March 2022 issue of Premier Pulse