Hospital focuses on women’s heart health

SHOWING HEART: Dr, Alice Kim, left, and Dr. Heather Hurlburt, co-directors of Women's Heart Health at Women & Infants Hospital, lead a program focused on the unique needs of female patients. / COURTESY JOE GIBLIN
SHOWING HEART: Dr, Alice Kim, left, and Dr. Heather Hurlburt, co-directors of Women's Heart Health at Women & Infants Hospital, lead a program focused on the unique needs of female patients. / COURTESY JOE GIBLIN

With heart disease the No. 1 killer of American women, including here in Rhode Island, a new cardiac-care center for women opened in February. Unlike many other cardiac-care facilities, the Women’s Heart Health of Women & Infants Hospital treats women exclusively.

Cardiologists from Brigham and Women’s Cardiovascular Associates, which has doctors on the staff of the Boston hospital, currently evaluate and treat women three days a week at Women’s Heart Health. As patient referrals increase, Dr. Heather Hurlburt, Women’s Heart Health co-director, anticipates the practice growing. Services include stress tests, personalized cardiovascular risk assessments, advanced cardiac imaging and catheterization services, as well as weight loss, smoking cessation and nutritional counseling.

Women’s Heart Health provides patients easy access to other Care New England institutions, including Kent Hospital and Memorial Hospital, with the same high-quality standards, said Dr. Raymond Powrie, Women & Infants’ interim chief of medicine. Men and women who require more sophisticated cardiac interventions may be referred to Kent or Memorial hospitals. Kent recently received approval to add percutaneous coronary intervention (more commonly known as angioplasty) to its repertoire of cardiac services.

When warranted, advanced cardiac surgery can be performed at a Lifespan facility or Brigham & Women’s Hospital, in Boston.

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The cardiologists working in Rhode Island and at Brigham & Women’s Hospital “provide [patients] layers of professional care and expertise. That’s what’s unique about our comprehensive cardiology program,” said Dr. Alice Kim, co-director of Women’s Heart Health, located in leased space on Plain Street in Providence. She said CNE’s cardiac specialists see the full spectrum of patients, including pregnant patients – from those seeking preventative care to those dealing with established heart disease.

“We need to change the perspective of who is your typical heart patient,” Hurlburt said.

Unfortunately, women across the age spectrum are at risk of stroke, a heart attack or other heart disease, particularly if they are overweight, diabetic or smoke, she said.

In February 2002, The Miriam Hospital opened its Women’s Cardiac Center. Dr. Kathleen Hittner, an anesthesiologist and then the hospital’s president/CEO, knew that women were treated for heart disease that was more advanced than their male counterparts’ cardiac disease, said Dr. Barbara Roberts, the Women’s Cardiac Center director.

Although the Women’s Cardiac Center treats women and men, “It offers special expertise in gender differences in heart disease [related to] risk factors and the different ways women react to different medications and procedures,” said Roberts. More than 1,000 patient visits occur annually at the Women’s Cardiac Center, which is staffed by Roberts, a medical assistant and a secretary.

Lifespan’s Cardiovascular Institute, the nation’s fourth-largest primary and secondary cardiac rehabilitation program, provides diagnostic, interventional, surgical and rehabilitative cardiac care at Newport Hospital, Rhode Island and The Miriam Hospital, said Dr. Samuel Dudley, director of the CVI, At offices around the state, CVI also offers outpatient services comparable to those provided at Women’s Heart Health.

Like Women’s Heart Health, Lifespan’s Women’s Medicine Collaborative provides comprehensive cardiology services only to women, including those who are pregnant. As the collaborative is integrated with the CVI, patients have access to CVI’s specialized testing, treatment, inpatient cardiac care and cardiac rehab. Lifespan could not immediately provide data on the number of cardiac visits.

Coronary heart disease mortality rates drastically declined between 2001 and 2010, according to Rhode Island Department of Health’s most recent data. For every 100,000 Rhode Island adults, 240 women and 356 men in 2001, and 146 women and 221 men in 2010, died from coronary heart disease. Those numbers represent a 39 percent and 38 percent decline, respectively, for women and men. National numbers for the same period were somewhat comparable, as mortality rates declined 40 percent and 35 percent for women and men, respectively.

Although women’s overall mortality rates for coronary heart disease are dropping in the U.S., rates for younger women (ages 35-54) are increasing, the American Heart Association said.

Women & Infants Hospital and its Women’s Heart Health center want to extend their knowledge of women’s medical needs, including cardiac issues, to other providers in the CNE network, said Powrie, who could not say how much the hospital and CNE had invested in the program. •

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