Jose Baez-Escudero, MD, in November stepped into his role as the first systemwide chief of cardiology at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health, where he also now serves as chief of cardiac electrophysiology.
He recently spoke with Becker's about his plans for the role, his top priorities and what he sees for the future of cardiovascular care at Broward Health.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What does being Broward Health's first chief of cardiology mean to you?
Dr. Jose Baez-Escudero: Broward Health already has a robust cardiology service line and great doctors. My joining the system is an additional step to build and organize multi-disciplinary teams for specialty programs, as well as subspecialty service lines within cardiology.
Q: What are your immediate priorities in the role?
JBE: Increasing the volume of doctors, building the arrhythmia program and offering new programs such as structural heart disease with focused specialists and cardiogenic shock program for patients with severe heart failure.
Another goal of mine is to expand the electrophysiology service line and hire other electrophysiologists to provide a full array of arrhythmia services at all our hospitals.
Finally, elevating the research and educational part of the program by working with [the Accreditation Council for] Graduate Medical Education to expand the current general fellowship by offering additional subspecialty cardiology fellowship programs with additional interventional cardiology, and eventually electrophysiology, training.
Q: What long-term goals do you have for cardiovascular care at Broward Health?
JBE: The goal is to improve and expand our cardiovascular care through clinical excellence and innovative research.
We want to make Broward Health a local destination hospital for cardiac care. Maybe three to five years down the road, we want to be a main center referral for cardiac services. Broward Health Medical Center is located very close to an international airport, we can make programs that cater to international patients from the Caribbean and Latin America.
Those are goals down the road, for sure. The priority will be making sure we can offer all these cardiac services consistently at each individual hospital.
Q: How do you envision developing the next generation of cardiovascular specialists at Broward Health?
JBE: I envision building our next generation of specialists by bringing in talented cardiologists with special skill sets, particularly recent graduates. By establishing those specialty fellowships, we aim to retain graduating fellows once they complete the programs.
Right now, the graduate medical education program at Broward Health has about 25 programs. Our cardiology fellowship is robust, but growing. We're currently at 10 fellows per year. Hopefully, we'll get to 12 in the next two years.
Q: What other growth opportunities do you see for cardiovascular care at Broward Health?
JBE: We already have a very strong foundation. We have great cardiac surgeons and they provide a broad spectrum of services within cardiac surgery.
The biggest growth opportunities are certainly within electrophysiology. There are many upcoming technologies that allow doctors to expand care to patients. This includes pulse field ablation for patients suffering from arrhythmias, as well as left atrial appendage occlusion devices directed at stroke prevention. Expanding those services is huge, as the prevalence of arrhythmias has continued to increase over the last few years. If we grow those programs, then we'll be able to also feed into the other subspecialties.
When we create a structural program that focuses on percutaneous valve therapies, we run into so much pathology that we need to collaborate with other subspecialties within cardiology. Our opportunity is to really build these programs that can feed into each other and work in coordination with each other, and then adding technologies.
We just launched Epic at Broward Health, and the transition has modernized the electronic health record dramatically. It brings a big opportunity to put together cohesiveness between cardiac programs and collaborate with other Epic user institutions. Patients love to have access to the electronic health record as well, so it increases patient satisfaction and improves the quality of care that we deliver.