President’s Letter

Dear Colleague,

Welcome to the 2023 Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute Outcomes and Innovation Report.

For over 50 years, Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute has strived to deliver exceptional cardiovascular care to all. Our approach is predicated upon placing the needs and expectations of our patients first. We then provide the care that is needed through the coordinated actions of our expert teams.

So we can continuously improve upon this approach, we closely monitor our patient outcomes on a real-time basis. At the close of each year, we gather and publish the data. Not only does this provide us with insight as to where we have opportunities to get better, it also provides a transparent and comprehensive portrait of our care.

I am pleased to share this year’s data with you. As you review our outcomes, I would like to draw your attention to a few specific achievements:

• In 2023, we performed the 500th VAD implant and our 750th heart transplant since our Advanced Heart Failure Program launched in 1995. Our clinical outcomes in caring for these extremely complex patients are amongst the top tier nationally.
• Also in this past year, we launched our Center for Women’s Cardiovascular Health, led by Esther Kim, MD, Izard Family Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine. Dr. Kim was recruited to Sanger from Vanderbilt University, where she gained international recognition for her work in women’s cardiovascular health, including the specific vascular medicine issues of Fibromuscular Dysplasia (FMD) and Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD).
  The Center provides specialized and integrated care to comprehensively address the unique cardiovascular needs of women across their lifespan. Within the Center, we have launched the region’s first joint Cardio-Obstetrics Clinic, where patients receive multidisciplinary care delivered by maternal fetal medicine and cardiology teams — on the same day in the same clinic space.
• Sanger’s Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) program — the only independently accredited Center of Excellence for this condition in our region — offers access to multidisciplinary comprehensive HCM care. Led by Dermot Phelan, MD, PhD, Gragg Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine, who was recruited to Sanger from the Cleveland Clinic, the HCM program houses the region’s largest portfolio of HCM research studies and clinical trials, including access to novel precision therapeutics for both obstructive and non-obstructive forms of HCM.
• Sanger’s Cardiac Surgery Program, led by John Frederick, MD, Chief of Cardiac Surgery, and Thomas Maxey, MD, Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery, achieved cumulative performance unparalleled in the Southeastern US:
  3 STAR rating (highest designation) from the Society for Thoracic Surgery (STS) for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) Surgery at all Sanger heart surgery locations.
  3 STAR ratings from the STS for both Aortic Valve Surgery and Mitral Valve Repair. John Frederick, MD and Larry Watts, MD lead these top-tier valve programs.
  U.S. News & World Report ranked Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital as #8 in the U.S. for pediatric cardiology and heart surgery, showcasing our expertise in care throughout childhood.

The above are but a few of the many stellar achievements the Sanger team realized this past year when caring for the cardiac, thoracic, and vascular needs of our patients. I hope you will take some time to read through this Outcomes & Innovation Report to learn more. Our goal is for you to be better informed if ever in need to make such care decisions for your patients, your family, or yourself.

Thank you once again for your interest in our work.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey A. Rose, MD, FACC, FASE
President
Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute,
Jerome J. & Rosalind Richardson Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine, Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute