Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery
General Information

Robert J. Still, MD Cardiovascular Surgeon Baptist Medical Center

There's a good reason our cardiac care program is the fastest-growing in Jacksonville. It's where you'll find an outstanding team of cardiac specialists dedicated to keeping hearts healthy. To bring that care together in one, convenient facility, Baptist Health is home to the state-of-the-art Baptist Heart Hospital at Baptist Medical Center Downtown, offering the latest innovations in cardiovascular care.

Baptist Health takes a comprehensive approach to heart care and offers the full spectrum of services to prevent and treat this disease. From outstanding emergency treatment through open-heart surgery to long-term management of chronic conditions, Baptist Health has developed a system-wide approach to cardiovascular treatment that ensures patients will receive the same standard of care throughout all of our hospitals.

Baptist Health also participates in ground-breaking cardiac research with our physician partners as we look for new and improved treatments for the largest killer of people in the United States: heart disease.

Reduction in Post-Op Infection Rate
Baptist Medical Center is the recipient of the 2003 Codman award (hospital category) for an initiative that reduced the infection rates of post-operative, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients. Innovations included changes in a variety of areas including the preparation of the surgical site, methods of administering antibiotics, maintenance of blood sugar levels after surgery, and standardization of wound care treatment. The resulting improvements in care led to a decrease in surgical wound and chest-cavity infections.

The Ernest A. Codman award is presented annually by The Joint Commission for achievement in improvement of the quality of care provided to the public.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) Clinic
Baptist Medical Center Downtown is the only hospital in Northeast Florida with outpatient CHF infusion therapy. This alternative to hospitalization helps patients manage quality of life issues such as inability to sleep comfortably, shortness of breath, and related respiratory problems. One aspect of treatment is the education of patients on detecting the escalating symptoms of CHF so that action can be taken early.

Hospitalization
Baptist Heart Hospital has 76 inpatient beds designed to provide the level of care needed by each patient. Patients move from the Intensive Care (ICU) and Coronary Care (CCU) units to Telemetry (transmitted readings) monitoring as their condition improves. The highly trained hospital staff specializes in treatment of specific conditions. For example, patients recovering from heart surgery receive care in ICU, while patients recovering from myocardial infarction ("heart attack") are in CCU.

Cardiac Rehabilitation
Individuals who would benefit from this program are those who are recovering from a heart attack or heart surgery, those who have angina or diagnosed coronary artery disease and those with a high risk of developing heart disease. During exercise sessions, each patient's cardiac status is continuously monitored by telemetry. Regular progress reports are made available to the referring physician. Upon completion of the medically supervised exercise program, patients receive instruction on an individual maintenance exercise program.

For more information on Baptist Heart Hospital's Outpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation Program call 904.202.4200

Pediatric Cardiology
Congenital heart disease is one of the most common birth defects, affecting nearly one percent of all babies born, or about 32,000 newborns each year in the United States.

 
Many of these infants and children are first diagnosed when their pediatrician hears a heart murmur on a routine examination. However some infants are critically ill in the first weeks of life or even before birth.

Wolfson Children's Hospital has a team of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who are specially trained to diagnose and treat infants, children and young adults with both congenital and acquired heart disease.

Our team includes specialists in interventional cardiac catheterization to correct many forms of congenital heart disease without surgery. These procedures include balloon angioplasties, catheter closure of congenital heart defects, and stenting of blocked arteries and veins.

In 2006, the University of Florida (UF) Pediatric Cardiovascular Center, a partnership between Wolfson Children's Hospital and UF/Jacksonville, received accreditation of its echocardiography labs from the Intersocietal Commission for Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories. They were among less than 20 pediatric labs in the United States to have achieved accreditation in three modalities:

• pediatric transthoracic
• pediatric transesophageal
• fetal echocardiography