Cardiologist Nanavati: Hospital’s Safe for Heart Treatment

COURT HOUSE –– One of the region’s most renowned cardiologists wants residents here to feel safe receiving heart treatment at Cape Regional Medical Center.
Dr. Suketu Nanavati, member and former chief of the cardiology department at the hospital, said the quality of cardiac care and healthcare in general at the old Burdette-Tomlin Memorial Hospital has improved drastically over the 28 years he’s practiced medicine in this county.
Nanavati, a past president of the county medical society, has for years lobbied officials at the hospital to work hard to improve customer care.
“Cape Regional’s cardiology care is excellent in the treatment of heart failure and acute myocardial infarction (heart attack),” he told the Herald.
Nanavati contacted this newspaper after reading an article reporting on a study of care given in New Jersey hospitals by the state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). The study rated hospitals in how often they used nationally recognized “best treatments” in treating conditions including heart failure and heart attack.
There were four “best treatment” indicators for heart failure including whether certain tests were done or proper discharge instructions given and seven treatment indicators for heart attack including whether aspirin or beta-blockers were administered.
“This is a poor way to judge care,” he said referring to the DHSS report as a checklist study. “Hospitals can score high marks in the survey if nurses simply go down these lists and check off the treatment – aspirin…check, beta-blocker…check.”
He also gave an example in which the study’s “best treatments” weren’t accurate.
“In black people, for instance, additional medicine should be administered beyond the traditional ‘best treatment,’” he said. “The study makes no mention of that.”
He said a better approach to judge cardiac treatment would be to look at physicians’ risk adjusted mortality rates and the quality of patients’ lives after heart failure and heart attack.
“Obviously, if a doctor’s patients are dying, there is something wrong,” said Nanivati who has a zero percent mortality rate over the last two years. “The quality of life following care is also very important.”
“Hospitals should publish this information on their doctors for the public to view,” he said.
According to Nanavati, even more important than how patients are treated in hospitals is their regular heart care in their cardiologist’s office.
“In fact, if patients are treated correctly by their cardiologists, they shouldn’t be hospitalized at all,” he said.
When choosing a doctor, patients should investigate, ask for mortality figures and not blindly follow the advice of their family doctors, because referrals are often based on friendships with other doctors not on the quality of care.
He said doctors should be rated on the care they give and graded, similar to a credit score, which patients could use when shopping for a physician.
In his office, the Cape Heart Clinic around the corner from the hospital, Nanivati uses state-of-the-art technology in the diagnosis and treatment of his patients.
His advanced diagnostic machines – several hundred thousand dollars worth of them – tell him much more information about his patients’ than standard blood pressure equipment found in doctors’ offices everywhere.
“This one measures blood pressure using 15 parameters,” he said proudly pointing to his Cardiodynamic monitor, one of the advanced devices he uses. “Standard machines do not give enough information to properly treat the patients.”
He also uses an ANSAR monitor, which measures the inner autonomic nervous system.
He said ANSAR aids in the early diagnosis of heart disease as well as numerous other medical conditions such as diabetes and syncope, or fainting spells.
Nanavadi is currently working on studies using the results he’s gathered from his high-tech equipment that he said could improve cardiac care by 30 to 40 percent.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com