Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute's physicians are sub-specialized in the
care of advanced and end-stage patients, including, but not limited to,
end-stage cardiomyopathy, end-stage and or recurrent CHF patients, angina
pectoris patients to rule out acute myocardial infarction, uncontrolled diabetes
mellitus, complex multi-system failure patients, post-stroke individuals with
different degrees of physical impairments, low cardiac output cases, etc. Both
of Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute's physicians, Dr. Caminos and Dr. Shah,
have dual privileging status in cardiology and internal medicine, which allows
them to closely monitor their patients on the PCP and specialty level.
Due to our commitment to provide preventive outpatient treatment, Pittsburgh
Cardiovascular Institute's hospital admissions have declined dramatically by 55
to 65 percent as compared to those prior to the year 2000. This comes as a
direct consequence of our increased confidence and reputation for controlling
and treating our patients in our modern outpatient facility. In keeping with our
philosophy of medical care, we limit admissions to interventional cardiac
procedures, severe cases of intractable CHF, acute MI and surgery. This
statistical fact is indicative of our commitment to following complex and
advanced patients' on an outpatient basis.
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Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute physicians rely on their ability and
freedom to diagnose patients by using, for example, EKG, X-Ray,
echocardiography, nuclear stress testing and stat laboratory technology, in an
outpatient modality of medicine. This allows our physicians to operate
independently from the hospital setting. If a physicians' medical diagnosing
reach is limited in the outpatient office environment, then he or she might be
forced to send the patient to the hospital or the emergency room for the same
testing that can be performed in less time and at a much lower cost in their own
office. Emergency room visits often end up in unnecessary and costly hospital
admissions for the patient as well, which in turn delay diagnosis and treatment.
Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute also acts as a "chest pain and congestive
heart failure clinic" for many patients and referring physicians, as our
physicians offer the most modern and cost-effective manner of administering care
to these types of patients and the other complex associated pathologies that we
see. We strongly believe that unnecessary hospital admissions of end stage cardiomyopathy and advanced medical pathologies often endanger patients' lives
unnecessarily due to forced early hospital discharges, the accumulation of
multiple unnecessary specialists called in consultation for different reasons,
patients being placed "on automatic pilot" by residents and emergency room
physicians at night, under or over treatment of problems by well intentioned
physicians who are not familiar with the peculiarities of each particular case,
or medical personnel who are not familiar enough with each particular patient to
know how to effectively and rapidly treat some of these complex cases today, to
name a few reasons.
For instance, our physicians are able to evaluate a patient’s cardiac enzymes
by performing a quick stat test in our office, or perform a stat venous doppler
ultrasound test to rule out Deep Venous Thrombosis (venous vein clots) as a part
of the patients consultation or office visit. This allows our physicians to
immediately detect any problem the patient may be experiencing during their
office visit, while preventing an unnecessary and costly hospital admission.
Modern, high technology out patient care in settings such as ours at Pittsburgh
Cardiovascular Institute is the way medicine will evolve in the future. Most of
the diseases that will eventually one day affect the patients that we serve are
silent and need detecting before they strike. Such is the case of coronary
artery disease, where many times the first symptom is nothing less than sudden
death, or cardiac arrest, or the rupture of an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm, or a
cerebrovascular accident due to undetected carotid plaque. All of these
pathologies and patients can be evaluated and treated in time if their
physicians take a preventative medicine approach to their clinical care.
Symptoms, pain, and tears are part of the suffering of infants and the young.
The elderly die silently, some times suddenly, many times unnecessarily and
other times without even knowing. The diseases that regretfully one day will
kill us all are most of the times silent and must be detected in time.
Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute doctors can due this in our outpatient
medical setting that is well equipped with the latest technology for detecting
and testing all types of pathologies.
As an outpatient care facility, we often come across medical analysts who use
hospital-based criteria for evaluating out patient care. This hospital based
medical mentality limits the "outpatient office" as a place to simply carry out
follow-up visits, while the "real" medicine is limited to the hospital setting.
This antiquated philosophy is handicapping progress in medicine, patients'
health and physicians' ability to diagnose without delay, as well as the
treatment and follow-up of complex patients we as physicians are able to provide
in "outpatient facilities."
In order for our concept of "outpatient care" to be able to provide the best
level of medical care in a timely fashion, it is essential that Pittsburgh
Cardiovascular Institute the outpatient facility maintain itself independent
from the hospital. This dynamic is evidenced at our outpatient facility, which
is entirely different from the outpatient facilities currently controlled by
hospital organizations. The latter are governed by internal autocracies that
create strict boundaries among physicians and their specialties, which limit the
types of testing that each physician is able to do in the outpatient setting.
This in turns affects the dynamics of rapid, economical and agile diagnosing and
care.
Pittsburgh Cardiovascular Institute's modern outpatient facility provides our
physicians with the tools to perform the same amount of testing in a couple
hours that would take a hospital eight hours, several days or even weeks to
perform through expensive admissions, multiple return visits, and lengthy
registration processes. For this reason alone, the majority of our advanced
disease patients achieve a degree of quality life and life prolongation far
superior to the one provided by physicians that are forced to resort to hospital
care and admission, including repetitive emergency room visits for their complex
patients due to their inability to provided adequate outpatient care.
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