About the OCC

The Ottawa Cardiovascular Centre (OCC) offers comprehensive cardiovascular care to a registered patient population of over 250,000 patients with approximately 50,000 active patients. Originally founded in 1987 by Drs. Joel Niznick and Brendan Quinn, OCC has grown to an 7 cardiologist group. As well OCC has integrated 2 Pediatric Cardiologists, 4 Internists and 1 Endocrinologist into the practice to deal with the broader aspects of cardiovascular risk reduction. We provide cardiology consultation, cardiovascular risk assessment, long term cardiovascular follow up and on site cardiovascular non-invasive testing at two sites. Our catchment area extends from Alexandria to Deep River and the Quebec border to the St Lawrence River. Annually we provide upward of 50,000 patient interactions within the broad spectrum of cardiovascular disease. Additionally we provide more than 20,000 diagnostic tests, which afford additional screening opportunities. The predominant patient has CAD or other forms of atherosclerosis and multiple risk factors including obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, dyslipidemia and hypertension.

Our nurses provide structured management to approximately 10,000 patients with our Lipid Optimization Tool achieving an 87% LDL at target rate (2.5 mmol/L), a 71% LDL at target rate to 2.0 mmol/L and a 60% LDL at target rate to 1.8 mmol/L. These results are amongst the best cholesterol control rates in the world literature. Other patient management tools have been devised and are available for review on our websitewww.cvtoolbox.com. We are the gold standard for cardiovascular chronic disease management.

On-site available testing includes:

• Stress Testing
• Echo/Doppler
• Exercise Stress Echo ( treadmill and bicycle)
• Exercise stress myocardial perfusion imaging
• Persantine stress myocardial perfusion imaging
• Gated nuclear wall motion
• Holter Monitoring
• Mobile Cardiac Telemetry
• Cardiac Loop Recorders
• Ambulatory BP Monitor

Our main office comprises 14,500 square feet) with 20 examination rooms, 4 stress labs, 2 nuclear labs and 9 echocardiography labs. Our satellite office comprises approximately 3500 ft.² including six examination rooms, one stress lab, 2 echo labs and one nuclear lab. We have over 40 employees including 25 admin staff, 2 cardiac nurses, 2 physician assistants, 6 registered cardiac technologists, 9 echocardiography sonographers and 3 nuclear technologists.

One cardiologist carries out cardiac catheterization at the Ottawa Heart Institute. Drs. Niznick, Dawdy, and Fulop attend at the Ottawa Hospital with in-patient and non-invasive activities at the General Campus and outpatient and non-invasive activities at the Riverside Site. Dr. Maranda and Dr. Lee practice outpatient cardiology. Dr. Maranda also attends at Hawkesbury General hospital. Dr. John Dawdy is a non-invasive cardiologist with special training including echocardiography and nuclear cardiology. Dr. John Fulop is a non-invasive cardiologist with special training in echocardiography, TEE and adult congenital heart disease. Dr. Kuriakose is a general internist with an interest in cardiovascular disease. Dr. Alain Baldo is a general internist with training in athero-thrombosis. Dr. Dan Boivin is a general internist with training and expertise in diabetes and immunodeficiency. Dr. Jodi Heshka is a general internist with an interest in cardiovascular disease in women. Dr. Dora Liu is an endocrinologist with special interest in diabetes control. We have five cardiac care nurses on staff to handle all aspects of patient care and communication.

Our model is to provide comprehensive structured continuing care in an integrated approach to global risk factor modification and optimization. We target every patient for optimal risk reduction and provide continuity to ensure that this care is sustained. We have developed evidence based patient management checklists to assist in targeting therapy and have trained our cardiac nurses and physician assistants to apply these algorithms to patient management.

We provide Rapid Referral Clinics and cardiovascular Residual Risk Clinics integrated into our day to day clinical model.

Our goal is to provide and deliver the best and most accessible evidence-based, structured care consistent with the latest clinical practice guidelines in a community practice setting that is:

Current, Consistent, Complete, Comprehensive and Continuous

In order to achieve the best cardiovascular outcomes in the world. We are the model for a Specialist Health Team offering Integrated Cardiovascular Disease Management from cradle to grave.