8/10/2019 Winter 2014, Medicine @Montefiore
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A 58-year-old woman was admitted to the Moses Campus with a
non-ST-segment elevation
myocardial infarction and immediately taken to the
Catheterization Lab, where a team insertedtwo stents into her right
artery. With a history of systolic heart failure, she considered
herself lucky.
And, when on her sixth day of hospitalization, the nurse told
her about the Heart Failure Brown B
Clinic, she was happy to listen.
Six months before, in early 2012, Ileana Pia, MD, MPH,
Assistant
Chief, Academic Affairs, Cardiology, Montefiore, and
Professor,
Medicine and Epidemiology & Population Health, Einstein,
began
the Heart Failure Brown Bag Clinic in the Cardiac Clinic
space
in the Greene Medical Arts Pavilion. We tell patients to bring
all
their medications to us in a brown bag after they are
discharged,
she says. e goal of this unique outpatient program is to
motivate
patients to adopt healthy behaviors and habits as well as
encourage
medication adherenceand thus reduce the likelihood of
readmissions.
e Clinic was born out of a new policy from the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which began reducing
payments to inpatient hospitals with excessive readmissions
for
patients who suffer from heart attacks, heart failure and
pneumo
Patients who are treated for a condition at the hospital but
then
neglect to properly care for themselves after discharge often
wind
back in the hospital, significantly adding to healthcare
costs.
Based upon the success of Montefiores Heart Failure Brown
Bag
Clinic, Montefiore was one of 15 institutions nationwide
selecte
Helping Patients Navigatethe Cardiac Care Process
www.monte
