‘I wanted to help these people get the care they needed in this community, without having to leave,’ Dr. Chris Nolan says of the reasoning behind his clinic<\/p>\n
When Orillia Cardiac Care opened its doors on Frederick Street at the end of August, it quietly marked a turning point for local health care.<\/p>\n
For the first time, residents no longer need to travel to Barrie, Newmarket\u00a0or Toronto for essential consultations and testing with a cardiologist.<\/p>\n
The new clinic is led by Dr. Christopher Nolan, who finished an advanced echocardiography fellowship this summer and immediately chose to bring his skills to a community he believes has long been underserved.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrillia is an underserved population for all medical services,\u201d Nolan said. \u201cMany patients in Orillia are currently going to get their cardiac care in Barrie, Toronto or even Hamilton because there are not enough resources here to see everyone. I wanted to help keep the cardiac care of these patients local.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move is a homecoming of sorts. Nolan completed medical school at McMaster University, trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the University of Manitoba, and capped it off with subspecialty training in Hamilton. Along the way, he worked in Winnipeg and Barrie, but with both his and his wife\u2019s families rooted in Simcoe County, he knew where he wanted to build his first full-time practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the sense of community the residents of Orillia have,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to help these people get the care they needed in this community, without having to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the clinic, patients are already being referred through family physicians, specialists, and hospital discharges for a wide range of services, from echocardiograms and Holter monitors to treadmill stress tests and stress echocardiograms. Nolan said most of the cases he expects to see will mirror broader trends across Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy far the most common cardiac condition in Canada is coronary artery disease, or cholesterol plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart,\u201d he explained. \u201cSome of these people will have chest pain only when they exercise, and the goal is to keep these people from having their first heart attack and allow them to keep living an active lifestyle. Unfortunately, some of these people will have had a heart attack prior to me seeing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reducing wait times is one of the immediate impacts, but Nolan emphasized accessibility is just as important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen patients need to travel long distances to places like Barrie, Newmarket\u00a0or Toronto, it can be quite taxing on them,\u201d he said. \u201cKeeping them local means they spend less time travelling\u00a0and more time in the community being engaged and being active.\u201d<\/p>\n
That local-first approach extends to how Nolan views collaboration. He has already begun working with Orillia Soldiers\u2019 Memorial Hospital and community physicians, and said the goal is to strengthen what already exists.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrillia has already had a great local care network for looking after various cardiac conditions, and I want to add to that already great network of providers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nolan hopes Orillia Cardiac Care will grow to include more providers and services, reducing the need for residents to leave town for anything but the most advanced procedures. Part of that vision includes preventive care, such as adding a dietitian to the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is that Orillia Cardiac Care continues to grow and bring more resources to the area,\u201d Nolan said. \u201cUltimately, I see Orillia Cardiac Care as an integral piece in part of the network of care that brings high-quality cardiac care to the Orillia area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘I wanted to help these people get the care they needed in this community, without having to leave,’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,96424],"class_list":{"0":"post-193717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-orilliacardiac-carechristopher-nolanchristopher-nolan-orilliadr-christopher-nolanorillia-cardiac-care"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}