Located on the fifth floor, the 23-bed Vascular Unit at Baptist Hospital East is designed to care for patients with all types of vascular problems, including:

• strokes
• phlebitis
• deep vein thrombosis
• vascular access for dialysis in patients with kidney disease caused by atherosclerosis
• post-surgical care for patients who have undergone:
  
  
  • bypass surgery of the arteries in the neck or legs
  • angioplasty and stent grafting procedures
  • amputations due to advanced vascular disease
  • aneurysm repair
  • vein stripping for the treatment of varicose veins and other vascular procedures

Nurses in the unit are specialty-trained in the care of vascular patients and receive monthly in-services on all facets of vascular disease.

Baptist Hospital East is one of only two hospitals in the country with this type of unit, caring for vascular patients immediately after surgery in a vascular unit, rather than in the ICU. Special wireless monitors allow patients to get out of bed within two hours after surgery, speeding recovery, shortening the hospital stay and lowering the cost of care.

Patients undergoing carotid bypass surgery who used to stay in the hospital three or four days are now going home in as little as 24 hours. Patients undergoing femoral-popliteal bypass surgery who used to stay in the hospital six or seven days are now going home in two or three days. Despite much shorter hospital stays, complication rates on the unit are less than half the national average.

Back to Vascular Services

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