Heart health is as important as ever, as heart disease and strokes remain the leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association.
When it comes to medical care access in Lewis County, options are limited, especially for cardiology and vascular services.
So when MultiCare — a nonprofit healthcare network that serves communities across the Pacific Northwest — was considering opening a new cardiovascular clinic, Dr. Charles “Rick” Rossow, a Centralia High School graduate who was born and raised in the area, suggested Lewis County as the new clinic’s location.
Now, he and four other partners are running the new Pulse Heart Institute clinic, which has now been open in Chehalis for just over a month.
“I just feel really blessed to be working in the community that I grew up in,” Rossow said. “To be able to take care of the patients that you knew as a kid growing up, seeing a lot of those patients in the office. Getting to do the job you trained to do in a place you wanted to do it, with some of the best partners you could ask for. It’s a pretty great thing.”
Part of MultiCare’s network, Pulse clinics are located in Tacoma, Aberdeen, Olympia, Puyallup and Yakima, among other communities.
The Chronicle visited Rossow and his partners, Drs. Zeid Nesheiwat, Timothy Larson and Hartaj Girn, on Thursday, April 10, to learn more about the new clinic. Additionally, they also work with Dr. Jimmy Swan.
“We were all together at a different practice and kind of made the decision to move to Pulse together,” Rossow said. “There were four of us that kind of moved across town. We were seeing patients in Centralia, and then this clinic space became available, so we moved over here.” Larson stated that, prior to the clinic opening, patients had to wait an average of around six months to get anything done at other cardiovascular clinics in the region, whether it was an exam, test or even surgery.
“Typically, we offer them services in one to two weeks, faster if they’re sick or urgent, sometimes in just 24 to 48 hours,” Larson said.
While they are still getting the Pulse clinic set up with more equipment, they anticipate being able to perform ultrasound heart imaging and heart echoes by May.
“Which before, historically, took months to get, or took going to Olympia,” Larson added.
Saving Lewis County residents a trip up to Olympia for a heart exam or procedure is something they’ve already seen happening, Girn said.
“Our patients come from Randle, Morton, everywhere out there,” Girn said. “... Me, Rick and Tim had moved practices here, so it was important to us in joining this new group, we wanted to open up the (Chehalis) clinic right away.”
“That was the one of the things we felt strongly about when we made the move, is we wanted to continue to have a robust presence down here because there are so many patients in this area that are in significant need of seeing a cardiologist,” Rossow added.
While Rossow and his partners were already pushing MultiCare to open its new Pulse clinic in the area, Larson explained the region was already being eyed before they suggested it.
“MultiCare really identified both Thurston and Lewis counties as places that were underserved and really deserved better,” Larso said.
Prior to opening the Pulse clinic, MultiCare purchased the Capital Medical Center in Olympia, and is working on improving its cardiovascular care there, too, Rossow said. An interventional cardiologist — meaning he specializes in diagnosing and treating heart and blood vessel issuing with minimally invasive procedures — Rossow is looking forward to the completion of the Capital Medical Center’s new cardiac catheterization lab.
“That’s been a huge area of focus for our group. Providing cardiovascular procedure care, what we call a cardiac cath lab, it’s an area where we put in stints and do coronary angiograms, treat the sickest patients with cardiac arrest, those types of things,” Rossow said. “The investment on MultiCare’s side, with Pulse, has been about $15 million for the cath lab to build a new hybrid operating room.”
Plans are in the works to remodel the hospital’s two existing catheterization labs, along with a possible mobile lab based out of Olympia.
According to Rossow, the reason behind this investment is because the largest catchment area for patients suffering from acute coronary syndrome or needing a percutaneous coronary intervention in Washington state is in the South Puget Sound area.
“There's five counties that feed into the Olympia area,” he added.
Lewis County is one of those counties, which is another reason why the Pulse clinic is now open.
“The need is huge. With the current system, about 30% of the patients we had just had to leave the area because we couldn’t care for them here,” Rossow said.
Being part of the MultiCare network makes it easier to coordinate with Capital Medical Center if a patient in the Lewis County area needs to be rushed in for an emergency cardiovascular procedure, Nesheiwat said.
“If there’s any issues down here, they can be taken care of quickly,” Nesheiwat added.
Other services offered at the new Pulse clinic include stress testing, echocardiograms, EKGs and other lab testing. The clinic has been taking patient referrals from the Providence Centralia Hospital, where some of them used to work before.
“We’ve only been open for maybe six weeks, and a lot of our patients already tell us, ‘It’s fantastic to have you down here. It’s really nice.’ It makes their life a lot easier. Rather than a whole day trip up to Olympia and back down, they can get in here very quickly without having to reschedule their whole day,” Nesheiwat said.
The new Pulse Heart Institute is located at 2530 NE Kresky Ave., Suite A, in Chehalis. For more information, call the Pulse clinic at 360-252-3890, or visit its website at https://www.pulseheartinstitute.org/.
To learn more about MultiCare, visit its website at https://www.multicare.org/.
