Lankenau is offering rides and veggie deliveries to help some patients access needed care before a heart surgery

After Linda Brothers had a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day in 2022, doctors at Lankenau Medical Center told her she needed bypass surgery — but she wasn’t healthy enough to receive it right away.

Doctors told the 68-year-old from West Philadelphia she needed to better manage her cholesterol levels, diabetes, and asthma to improve her odds of having a successful surgery.

Brothers lacked transportation to return to the hospital for the months of follow-up appointments that would be needed. Already weak from her heart attack, she worried about how to get groceries and prepare healthy meals for the dietary changes recommended.

Many Lankenau patients who are heart surgery candidates are similarly challenged to find regular transportation to the hospital at the intersection of West Philadelphia and Montgomery and Delaware Counties, or can’t take off work to go to multiple doctor’s appointments. Others needed help getting fresh foods or building an emotional support system as they prepared for surgery.

That’s where the Lankenau Initiative to Improve Cardiovascular Access steps in. A team of cardiologists works with patients from areas around Lankenau where the hospital’s population health team has determined that residents lack access to routine health care for heart conditions, which are among the nation’s leading causes of death. The initiative aims to help these patients get follow-up care and stick with it, prepare for surgery, and stay healthy afterward.

“A lot of times we see that a patient has been in with a heart attack and they did not follow up. Sometimes they come back after having another heart attack,” said Mara Caroline, an interventional cardiologist who heads the initiative.

The program, funded entirely through charitable donations, has served 45 patients since its inception in 2023, and 97% of them have continued to attend follow-up visits. Staff provide transportation to the hospital for patients who need it, and once there, help them to navigate their insurance policies and pharmaceutical coverage to keep their medication costs low. Patients get deliveries of fresh fruits and vegetables from the hospital’s on-site farm, and regular calls from program staff to check in.

“We’re just trying to get them access to all the resources that they need to make them successful,” Caroline said.

Brothers was connected with Caroline and other initiative staff, who checked in regularly with her and helped arrange rides to the hospital and weekly deliveries of vegetables from the hospital farm. At the hospital pharmacy, staff helped her navigate co-pays and insurance coverage for her medications.

As Brothers prepared for surgery, she was sometimes surprised by the lengths program staff went to reach her. “They were calling all the time, getting on my nerves. I thought, ‘Don’t these people know how sick I am?’” she said, laughing. “But it was good — the accountability. And they didn’t stop.”

Over the next several months, Brothers was able to lower her cholesterol and blood sugar levels to a point where she was healthy enough to have a better chance at a successful surgery.

On Valentine’s Day in 2023, Brothers showed up at Lankenau for her triple-bypass surgery wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with an enormous red heart to celebrate the occasion. The procedure went well. After she went home, program staff continued to stay in touch, encouraging her through cardiac rehabilitation and continuing to meet with her for follow-up appointments a year later.

She’s grateful that paramedics took her to Lankenau two years ago. Otherwise, she believes, she might not have found the support she needed to prepare for a surgery.

“It was, so to speak, the worst day of my life,” she said. “But it turned out to be the best.”