When Katina Nelson woke up with chest pain that startled her from sleep, she didn’t immediately panic.
“I kind of ignored the symptoms,” she admits. But by the next evening, the pain returned, tingling and insistent. With her healthcare background as a nurse with Health Care Centers in Schools at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Health, Katina knew not to wait any longer.
She walked into the ER, not as a nurse but as a patient. What happened next was a blur of swift, precise care — an EKG, vital signs and immediate concern from staff.
“When I was actually getting my vitals done, someone from the EKG came into the vital sign room and let me know that my EKG was very abnormal,” she recalls. “They had already sent it to the cardiologist and they wanted to get me back to the cath lab immediately.”
Within an hour, Katina was undergoing testing that would reveal triple blockage in her coronary arteries. By the next morning, she was in surgery for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), a life-saving procedure to restore blood flow to the heart.
Compassion in Every Detail
Katina spent seven days at the Regional Medical Center, and as both a patient and healthcare professional, Katina was acutely aware of the small details.
“The nurses who prepared me for surgery were phenomenal,” she says. “Physically, medically, support-wise, emotional-wise. They did everything that they needed to do as nurses to get me ready.”
Katina also praises the cardiac rehab and occupational therapy teams for their dedication after surgery.
“There were some things I was scared to do. I was scared to walk. I’m scared to shower. They helped build the confidence for me to do them,” she says. “They walked with me even though I had those fears. They were amazing.”
Just weeks after her surgery, Katina is preparing to start cardiac rehab and get back to her normal life.
“I don’t feel like I had a heart attack and bypass three weeks ago,” she says. “I’ve listened to what they told me. I’ve gotten up. I’ve been doing my little walks at home. I’m excited.”
Setting a National Standard
Katina’s success story is more than personal; it’s also emblematic of a broader recognition. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center was recently honored by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of the top 15 hospitals in the nation with the lowest readmission rates following CABG surgery. The hospital is ranked 15th in the nation, according to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which tracked readmission outcomes between July 2020 and June 2023.
The driving force behind these outstanding results is three-fold:
- The surgical group and cardiovascular ICU at Our Lady of the Lake Heart and Vascular Institute are world-class.
- The anesthesia team extubates about 75 percent of patients in the operating room, allowing them to become mobile faster.
- But the third, and less well-known reason is a highly specialized glucose control protocol for all CABG patients that the team has been perfecting for the past two decades.
A Protocol That Protects
Glucose control may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about heart surgery, but it’s one of multiple crucial elements for preventing complications.
“When your sternum is opened during surgery, the body releases stress hormones that cause a spike in blood sugar — even in patients who aren’t diabetic,” explains Richard Slataper, MD, chief of hospital medicine at Our Lady of the Lake. “High glucose levels dramatically increase the risk of post-operative infections, especially in the chest area.”
In 2005, Our Lady of the Lake launched a multidisciplinary initiative to tackle this problem. The protocol spans the entire care continuum, from pre-op to discharge, and has evolved over two decades based on real-time data and continuous feedback. Today, it’s a model of precision medicine.
Over the last 22 months, the team has recorded nearly 20,000 glucose readings for 421 CABG patients. The median glucose level? A stable 139 mg/dL. The rate of severe hypoglycemia — an often dangerous side effect of targeted glucose control — is a remarkably low 0.02 percent or 1 in every 5,000 glucose readings, much better than the national average for CABG surgery patients.
“Those numbers are not just good. They’re industry-leading,” says Dr. Slataper. “We’ve trained more than 70 hospitalists to use this protocol. They go through detailed training, and a competency exam before deploying the protocol for the benefit of our patients.”
Why It Matters
The most common reason for hospital readmission after heart bypass surgery is infection. By maintaining optimal glucose levels and consistently applying other infection control measures Our Lady of the Lake has significantly reduced that risk. And the impact is real: lower infections, fewer readmissions and even a 26% lower-than-expected mortality rate.
“It’s truly a multidisciplinary team effort that has stood the test of time,” says Dr. Slataper. “Our protocol doesn’t just save lives. It helps people return to their lives.”
For Katina, that return means family, faith and community.
“I want people to know you can get through this. I will use my testimony to let them know that the Lake took excellent care of me,” she says. “My care team truly had the spirit of healing.”
A Return Visit Just to Say Thank You
While Our Lady of the Lake was honored for keeping patients from returning to the hospital after surgery, one CABG patient keeps coming back — not for follow-up care, but to thank the people who saved him.
Keith Comeaux had his own heart surgery in 2018 to repair a birth defect that damaged his aortic valve. Since then, he’s made it a point to return to the hospital every few months.
“It’s like going back to see family,” he says. “What I want to do is just go show my gratitude for everything that they did for me and my family. And I think it’s more uplifting for me than it is for them, I’ll be honest with you. I get a lot more out of it than they do.”
Keith brings treats — donuts, king cakes, whatever’s in season — and shares heartfelt thanks with doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, PAs and physical therapists.
“Sometimes I think these professionals don’t get the gratitude they deserve,” he says. “So, I make a special effort. Even if they didn’t care for me personally, they’re caring for someone else’s loved one, and that means everything.”
A Model of Excellence
Katina and Keith’s stories are more than personal milestones — they’re reflections of a system of excellence.
The hospital continues to refine its approach, taking patient feedback, clinical data and evolving evidence into account. And while the CABG protocol remains highly specific to open-heart procedures, its success sets the tone for how other surgical and medical programs are evaluated.
Dr. Slataper notes that while the glucose protocol was once considered cutting-edge, it’s now just part of how the hospital does business.
“This protocol has been in place for so long, and it’s very reassuring that it’s really proven that it works with the test of time,” he says. “It gives us a lot of confidence that we’re putting our patients in a good spot to recover from their heart surgery.”
