Di Blasi team focusing on high-tech customer service, diagnostics
December 19, 2006
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer As in the depths of a Mercedes Benz, there’s a “wiring harness” lying like a mantle around and through the most important muscle in the human body. But even the occasional Mercedes is beset with flaws, and so is the human heart.
They and their staff comprise a team that continues to add new expertise to the customer-care portfolio of the Del Rio Heart and Diabetes Center, 3809 Veterans Blvd. Acquisition of office-centered skills and state-of-the-art technologies have been the persisting passions of the Doctors Di Blasi, and they are ready to reveal plans for the immediate future.
Dr. Tina Di Blasi diagnoses problems and prescribes preventive measures for diseases affecting the entire endocrine system of vital glands, but the pancreas – and its shutdown failure resulting in diabetes – is her focus. A too-frequent ramification of unmitigated diabetes is heart disease, and that, of course, is where Di Blasi’s husband, Michele comes in.
Together, the Di Blasis continue to accumulate patient care capabilities that they hope will diminish Del Rioans’ knee-jerk, “Gotta get to San Antonio” response to cardiac problems. Subscribers to the “Shop Del Rio First” philosophy, the Di Blasis recognized early in their careers here that, first, the medical “products” have to be available to those shopping for them.
Michele Di Blasi was the driving force behind development of a “Special Procedures Laboratory” at Val Verde Regional Medical Center, but has now found that he and a few associates need to go it alone to bring additional technologies and services to Del Rio.
“Now a patient can come here and be diagnosed within a couple of hours,” Di Blasi told LIVE! in a Dec. 14 interview. T Wave Alternans is one of many tools at Di Blasi’s disposal, and is most important for patients he believes may be at imminent threat of heart attack or death.
The heart’s normally dependable thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP beat is regulated by minute charges of electricity, and T Wave Alternans assesses – from an electrocardiogram – whether that beat is interrupted by losses of electrical impulse in that all important “wiring harness” of nerves. If so, the diagnosis may suggest immediate implantation of a tiny defibrillator, pacemaker or both to safeguard the heart’s regularity.
Di Blasi has also installed a nuclear stress test facility in the north Del Rio clinic. Demanding specifications of both architecture and staff training were completed before he could offer this unique service which, with injection of tiny traces of radioactive particles, allows Di Blasi to observe color images of the heart during stress testing. With it, he is more able to positively identify trouble spots. For more information about this procedure, see www.texasheart.org/HIC/Topics/Diag/dinuc.cfm.
He will soon add X-ray and film interpretation, and already has technology to identify congestive heart failure in his arsenal of diagnostic procedures. The Di Blasis also have plans to soon develop a 25,000-square-foot chest pain clinic, believing that patients presenting cardiac problems should not be required to wait for hours for diagnoses. “This will be for urgent care, so I can see patients immediately, like a walk-in clinic for cardiac patients,” Di Blasi explained.
He is also gearing up his office with laboratory space and equipment to handle blood work analyses more expeditiously.
And recently, Di Blasi added External Enhanced Counter Pulsation equipment and treatments to the office. This robust procedure forces blood flow to and from the heart for patients with angina (chest pain) caused by coronary artery disease. Di Blasi said that there are only three treatment centers with EECP capability in San Antonio, and none in Austin or San Angelo.
“This treatment is for patients who have heart disease, but, for one reason or another, are not good candidates for surgery,” Di Blasi said. “It is believed that the procedure may actually create small bypasses around obstructions affecting blood flow to the heart.” For more information on EECP, see www.heartinfo.org/ms/guides/5/main.html.
A wound care center is another facility on the Di Blasis’ drawing board. “It requires that we have an endocrinologist [Tina Di Blasi], a podiatrist and a surgeon,” Di Blasi explained, adding that physicians in all those disciplines have indicated interest in the joint venture. Val Verde Regional Medical Center was invited to participate in the project, Di Blasi said, but declined.
As a hospital affiliation is also required for licensing of a wound care center, he is entertaining proposals from at least two other institutions. “These are services we don’t have here in Del Rio, and the community needs them very badly,” Di Blasi said. The wound care center would feature two hyperbaric chambers to treat wounds that are reluctant to heal (another insidious manifestation of unchecked diabetes). Di Blasi believes it will be a $400,000 profit center for whichever hospital participates in the project.
More than a year ago, Di Blasi pledged to become a “paperless” office, with all patient records committed to highly specialized computer programs. The office staff is nearly finished with this necessarily meticulous, painstaking task. About 2,500 Del Rio Heart and Diabetes Center patients are now in this vast system with multiple backups. The final 1,500 patients will be installed there by July 2007. “We have already begun to abandon traditional charts, and should be completely paperless in about six months,” Di Blasi said.
“Now, when they call me from the emergency room, I can begin looking at patients’ records immediately. I have all the records at my fingertips right on my laptop computer,” Di Blasi explained. The computer will instantly display all records of previous examinations of each patient, diagnoses, all medications prescribed, and all treatments completed and underway.
As if Michele and Tina Di Blasi have not been sufficiently occupied with an abundance of patients, burgeoning technologies and a growing staff, they have more plans for the complex of medical technologies and services now underway. But for strategic and tactical reasons, those announcements must wait. “What is important,” Di Blasi stressed, “is that what we said we were going to do more than a year ago, we have done.”
For more information see the Di Blasis’ animated Web site, www.delrioheart.com.
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer As in the depths of a Mercedes Benz, there’s a “wiring harness” lying like a mantle around and through the most important muscle in the human body. But even the occasional Mercedes is beset with flaws, and so is the human heart.
Dr. Michele Di Blasi is Del Rio’s specialist in finding out what’s wrong with that wiring harness of nerves, and the valves, muscle, veins, arteries and capillaries on which the pivotal organ depends. He and his wife, Dr. Tina Di Blasi, are Del Rio physicians specializing respectively in cardiology and endocrinology.
They and their staff comprise a team that continues to add new expertise to the customer-care portfolio of the Del Rio Heart and Diabetes Center, 3809 Veterans Blvd. Acquisition of office-centered skills and state-of-the-art technologies have been the persisting passions of the Doctors Di Blasi, and they are ready to reveal plans for the immediate future.
Dr. Tina Di Blasi diagnoses problems and prescribes preventive measures for diseases affecting the entire endocrine system of vital glands, but the pancreas – and its shutdown failure resulting in diabetes – is her focus. A too-frequent ramification of unmitigated diabetes is heart disease, and that, of course, is where Di Blasi’s husband, Michele comes in.
Together, the Di Blasis continue to accumulate patient care capabilities that they hope will diminish Del Rioans’ knee-jerk, “Gotta get to San Antonio” response to cardiac problems. Subscribers to the “Shop Del Rio First” philosophy, the Di Blasis recognized early in their careers here that, first, the medical “products” have to be available to those shopping for them.
Michele Di Blasi was the driving force behind development of a “Special Procedures Laboratory” at Val Verde Regional Medical Center, but has now found that he and a few associates need to go it alone to bring additional technologies and services to Del Rio.
“Now a patient can come here and be diagnosed within a couple of hours,” Di Blasi told LIVE! in a Dec. 14 interview. T Wave Alternans is one of many tools at Di Blasi’s disposal, and is most important for patients he believes may be at imminent threat of heart attack or death.
The heart’s normally dependable thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP beat is regulated by minute charges of electricity, and T Wave Alternans assesses – from an electrocardiogram – whether that beat is interrupted by losses of electrical impulse in that all important “wiring harness” of nerves. If so, the diagnosis may suggest immediate implantation of a tiny defibrillator, pacemaker or both to safeguard the heart’s regularity.
Di Blasi has also installed a nuclear stress test facility in the north Del Rio clinic. Demanding specifications of both architecture and staff training were completed before he could offer this unique service which, with injection of tiny traces of radioactive particles, allows Di Blasi to observe color images of the heart during stress testing. With it, he is more able to positively identify trouble spots. For more information about this procedure, see www.texasheart.org/HIC/Topics/Diag/dinuc.cfm.
He will soon add X-ray and film interpretation, and already has technology to identify congestive heart failure in his arsenal of diagnostic procedures. The Di Blasis also have plans to soon develop a 25,000-square-foot chest pain clinic, believing that patients presenting cardiac problems should not be required to wait for hours for diagnoses. “This will be for urgent care, so I can see patients immediately, like a walk-in clinic for cardiac patients,” Di Blasi explained.
He is also gearing up his office with laboratory space and equipment to handle blood work analyses more expeditiously.
And recently, Di Blasi added External Enhanced Counter Pulsation equipment and treatments to the office. This robust procedure forces blood flow to and from the heart for patients with angina (chest pain) caused by coronary artery disease. Di Blasi said that there are only three treatment centers with EECP capability in San Antonio, and none in Austin or San Angelo.
“This treatment is for patients who have heart disease, but, for one reason or another, are not good candidates for surgery,” Di Blasi said. “It is believed that the procedure may actually create small bypasses around obstructions affecting blood flow to the heart.” For more information on EECP, see www.heartinfo.org/ms/guides/5/main.html.
A wound care center is another facility on the Di Blasis’ drawing board. “It requires that we have an endocrinologist [Tina Di Blasi], a podiatrist and a surgeon,” Di Blasi explained, adding that physicians in all those disciplines have indicated interest in the joint venture. Val Verde Regional Medical Center was invited to participate in the project, Di Blasi said, but declined.
As a hospital affiliation is also required for licensing of a wound care center, he is entertaining proposals from at least two other institutions. “These are services we don’t have here in Del Rio, and the community needs them very badly,” Di Blasi said. The wound care center would feature two hyperbaric chambers to treat wounds that are reluctant to heal (another insidious manifestation of unchecked diabetes). Di Blasi believes it will be a $400,000 profit center for whichever hospital participates in the project.
More than a year ago, Di Blasi pledged to become a “paperless” office, with all patient records committed to highly specialized computer programs. The office staff is nearly finished with this necessarily meticulous, painstaking task. About 2,500 Del Rio Heart and Diabetes Center patients are now in this vast system with multiple backups. The final 1,500 patients will be installed there by July 2007. “We have already begun to abandon traditional charts, and should be completely paperless in about six months,” Di Blasi said.
“Now, when they call me from the emergency room, I can begin looking at patients’ records immediately. I have all the records at my fingertips right on my laptop computer,” Di Blasi explained. The computer will instantly display all records of previous examinations of each patient, diagnoses, all medications prescribed, and all treatments completed and underway.
As if Michele and Tina Di Blasi have not been sufficiently occupied with an abundance of patients, burgeoning technologies and a growing staff, they have more plans for the complex of medical technologies and services now underway. But for strategic and tactical reasons, those announcements must wait. “What is important,” Di Blasi stressed, “is that what we said we were going to do more than a year ago, we have done.”
For more information see the Di Blasis’ animated Web site, www.delrioheart.com.
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We are so blessed to have
We are so blessed to have the Diblasi family move to Del Rio; and have a great vision , and believe in the people of Del Rio.Thank you doctors for all your service that you provide to our community.
Positive, I second that.
Positive,
I second that.