As you may recall, we conducted a survey last December with our providers to get feedback about referral coordination for the Cardiology Clinic and cardiopulmonary services. The results of this survey helped guide process improvement efforts, including the following:

Echocardiogram access: New Saturday and Sunday hours have helped reduce the waiting time for patient appointments. Currently wait times are beyond our goal of two weeks or less. Also, a new staff person was hired, a new space opened, and one new echo machine will go online soon with a second one budgeted for three months from now. These changes will help us achieve the goal of a 2-week wait time for routine echos and 1 - 3 days for acute/stat.

Stress test access: Urgent tests are now available daily. If a referring provider needs to schedule an urgent stress test, please reach out to Beverly Russell, Cardiology Ops Coordinator (ext. 690.7400). Currently, available slots are not being filled and the clinic has openings. There are additional treadmill appointments available daily at 1:30, 2:30 and 3:30 PM. Please let us know if you or your patients experience any scheduling challenges.

Nuclear stress test availability: This has improved but is dependent on insurance approvals. We continue to have openings and availability.

Urgent clinic consults/referrals: If a patient has a new acute onset of chest pain or heart failure that is progressively worsening, contact the on-call cardiologist. Be prepared to share details about diagnostic assessments completed (e.g. ECG, echo, stress test). Weekdays (8 AM-5 PM) call 425.690.3482 and press 5 to reach the backline to reach on-call physician. After hours, call 425.228.3450 and ask for the on-call physician to be paged.

Cardiology is reporting that some referring providers have been calling the on-call provider as advised above. If you are still experiencing barriers, including any Epic-based problems, please let us know. We also welcome suggestions for how we can further improve this process.

Please direct your feedback, concerns, or suggestions to:

Rajib Choudhury, MD
Cardiology Medical Director
Rajib_Choudhury@valleymed.org

Lauren Wong, MD
Cardiology Manager
Lauren_Wong@valleymed.org