New Vascular Institute Coordinates Patient Care for Best Outcomes

Bradley Mays, M.D., Medical Director, Columbia St. Mary’s Vascular Institute

Posted: Feb. 1, 2007

For patients with vascular disease, finding comprehensive care that addresses the host of issues that accompany this type of disease can be a challenge. Fortunately, the new Vascular Institute at Columbia St. Mary’s Columbia Hospital is designed to treat the entire person, not just the disease.

The Columbia St. Mary’s Vascular Institute has assembled a team of medical specialists that can tailor each patient’s treatment plan for the best outcome. This team includes cardiologists, surgeons and interventional radiologists, along with podiatrists and wound care specialists, all specializing in vascular care.

A patient nurse coordinator helps each patient every step of the way, answering questions and tracking each patient’s care. We set long-term health goals for our patients and monitor their progress. Few programs provide the type of extensive patient progress tracking as ours.

Limb preservation and maximum function are the most important goals of someone suffering with vascular disease. Our staff meets at least once a month to review each patient case and adapt treatments as needed. And, because a person with vascular disease is at least 30 percent more likely to also have heart disease, our team will review each patient’s full health history and disease symptoms.

While creating our Institute, we developed a plan to include the most sophisticated imaging studies, interventional treatments and surgical options available. Our testing capabilities include Magnetic Resonance Angiogram (MRA) as well as traditional angiography.

During an angiography, dye is injected into a patient’s blood vessels through a catheter, allowing the physician to review the vessels and find the blockages. During an MRA, detailed images of all the blood vessels are taken using a magnetic field instead of X-ray.

Surgical options, such as angioplasty, bypass surgery and stenting, also are available through our Institute. With these techniques, we often have a good chance of saving a person’s limbs, even in advanced stages of vascular disease. And, with our extensive patient follow-up program, we will continuously educate ourselves and our patients on what treatments are most effective for various vascular disease situations.

Because vascular disease is largely a result of modifiable lifestyle factors, our Institute also features a patient education component, helping to teach patients how to change their health – from losing weight to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol to smoking cessation – in order to improve, or avoid, vascular disease altogether.

At the new Vascular Institute, we believe our “passion for patient care” motto is how we should practice medicine. That was one of the driving forces in establishing our Institute initially and the philosophy behind which we plan to treat each patient, helping them fight vascular disease and remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

Bradley Mays, M.D.
Medical Director
Columbia St. Mary’s Vascular Institute
414-961-VASC

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