St. Francis opens new
outpatient heart center

The facility will treat patients who aren't
sick enough to be hospitalized
but need care

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

A unique outpatient clinic opened today at St. Francis Medical Center to provide better management of people with heart disease.

The Heart Center Clinic hopes to fill a gap -- treating patients who aren't sick enough to be hospitalized but need some care to remain home, said Coraleen Grothaus, clinical manager.

"Many patients probably will be referred to us while they're in the hospital and come in with shortness of breath," she said. "Hopefully, we can tune them up and get them back on track."

Cardiologist William Dang Jr., medical director of the clinic's Heart Failure Program, and a panel of physicians will assist patients with dietary and drug needs, cardiac rehabilitation and home care.

Patients were referred by physicians and waiting for help before the clinic held its blessing and open house today, Grothaus said. She has been following a few patients at the request of physicians, she said. "Heart failure is on the rise," she said. "Part of it is because we have a growing older population."

With this disease, she said, the heart muscle isn't very good at pumping blood, so people are frequently readmitted to the hospital or to the emergency room because of shortness of breath, fluids building up and other symptoms.

"We're looking at ways to manage this disease process more efficiently and effectively." She said the clinic will follow patients more aggressively to try to prevent or slow progression of the disease and problems that would send them back to the hospital.

The program is driven partly by costs because patients with chronic diseases stay a long time in the hospital, she said.

The clinic also will serve as a bridge with the hospital's heart transplantation program, she said. Patients who are heart transplant candidates will be able to stay home and have some quality of life while waiting for a donor, she said.

Such clinics have been offered on the mainland, but the program at St. Francis is the "first concerted organized formal effort" in Honolulu, Grothaus said.In planning the clinic the past two years, she said the "whole concept just started to grow." The team will follow vascular as well as heart failure patients and conduct cardiovascular research, she said.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved studiesby the clinic with pharmaceutical firms on the effectiveness of certain drugs to treat heart failure and plaque build-up in arteries.