NuHealth launches new heart failure program

Arthur A. Gianelli, president/CEO of the NuHealth System, announced that the heart failure center at Nassau University Medical Center is ready to throw its doors open to care for patients with heart failure. The center will be lead by a team of nurses under the able leadership of Deborah Ahern, NP, with vast experience in caring for patients with heart failure, and who worked side by side with world-renowned cardiologist Dr. Milton Packer for 18 years.

The chairman of the department of cardiology, Dr. Sanjay Doddamani is one of 230 physicians in the United States who has received board certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant. Dr. Doddamani also currently serves as the co-chair of the North Shore-LIJ Health System’s task for heart failure.

“Today is a landmark in NuHealth’s capabilities for care of very sick patients who can now receive world-class care in heart failure,” Gianelli said. “It also represents a culmination of priorities to raise the bar in quality by focusing on the number one cause for hospital readmission.

“By introducing a hospital to home program that targets readmission, length of stay and mortality, we will have cardiology nurses and physician leaders who can see patients within 72 hours of discharge, reconcile medications, offer intravenous infusions soon after discharge and prevent patients from landing up back in the hospital,” Gianelli added.

Steven J. Walerstein, MD, FACP, NuHealth’s executive vice president for medical affairs and medical director, said: “Our cardiology partnership with the North Shore-LIJ Health System has lead to an intensified effort to improve mortality outcomes in acute MI and heart failure. Being able to offer patients the very best heart failure care will no doubt improve care of the elderly in our community.”