Dr. William Harris in the OR at the Valve Center at Baptist.

NP Camille Richards runs unique program

The new Valve Center at Baptist Cardiovascular Services provides cardiology patients who have been diagnosed with a heart valve problem with a specialty clinic in a unique program managed by nurse practitioner Camille Richards.

“The Valve Center is a little like ‘one-stop shopping,’” said Richards. “Instead of going to one doctor after another, having tests done, and then returning for the test results, we’re offering two heart specialists (cardiovascular surgeons William Harris, MD, and Stewart Horsley, MD) in one place at the same appointment time.”

For example, a heart murmur that is typically found when a doctor listens to a patient’s heart indicates that blood flow through the heart isn’t normal. Even though most murmurs don’t indicate a major problem, tests need to be done to ensure the murmur isn’t the sign of a more serious problem.

“We’ll schedule any needed tests on the morning before the appointment so that all results will be ready when a patient sees the doctors that afternoon,” she said. “The benefit of seeing two specialists at once is that all of the treatment options can be explored at one time from medications to minimally invasive interventions, and to surgery. We know that every second is precious when dealing with a serious medical issue and we believe that we can make every second count with this approach to heart valve treatment.”

Because technology has dramatically changed how patients may be treated, the Valve Center at Baptist’s team of interventional cardiologists can perform minimally invasive procedures on heart valves and instantly increase the function of the valve.

“We also have cardiac surgeons who can perform an open heart surgery to replace a valve through a 2- to 3-inch incision,” she said. “The difference between that incision and a large open heart incision down the breast bone means less time in the hospital, fewer complications, and less pain. Overall, minimally invasive valve replacement offers a faster recovery for our patients to get back to their lives.”

Kempf Poole, executive director of ancillary services for Baptist, said that some 18 months ago, hospital administrators began to educate themselves on the prevalence of untreated and undertreated heart valve disease. 

“Most traditional pathways treat the symptoms of the valve disease instead of correcting the underlying problem,” he said. “Studies have proven that quite often, patients are never considered candidates for surgical therapy to correct their valve problem until they’re very sick and the symptoms of their disease are so severe that their surgical risk is elevated. We were so intrigued that we collected blinded historic data on a population of our patients to see how our process and time to treatment of the disease compared to the study. To our pleasant (though not totally unexpected) surprise, we were similar to everyone else that participated in the study. It was an eye-opening moment for us. Our quest then became to provide a better model of care for these patients. If the valve problem can be corrected in the early stages, the patient’s outcome and quality of life is dramatically improved. We’re so excited to see the results as we just found out that one of our patients just completed a half marathon five months after their valve was repaired.”

Baptist administrators very carefully set up the operational structure of the clinic, said Poole.

“Fortunately, there were centers in the larger metropolitan and academic centers that were a little ahead of us on this,” he said. “We consulted with them and determined what their best practice models were and then tailored it to fit our specific opportunity.”

Richards claims her job coordinating and navigating patients through the Valve Center at Baptist “is the best role,” hands down.

“I get to interact with the patients from the beginning of the process,” she explained. “From the first phone call for an appointment, my role is to educate the patient and the family on the tests, diagnosis and treatment. I’m a part of the decision-making process for what treatment the patient will receive and I will ensure that the treatment plan is done. I also will be in constant contact with the patient’s referring doctor, nurse practitioner, family doctor or cardiologist. This communication ensures that everyone is on board with the treatment plan for the best outcomes.”

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