16  HEALTH CARE HEROES PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL

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Sarah Wilmowski
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works as a liaison
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family members and

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caregivers.
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JIM POULIN | PHOENIX

BUSINESS JOURNAL
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BY JANET PEREZ | Contributing writer

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Suffering from asthma taught Sarah

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Wilmowski the value of caregiving

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As a child suffering from asthma, Sarah Nursing Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital is part of dure, she is right there, too, holding an anx-
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Wilmowski became familiar with her local Phoenix-based Abrazo Community Health ious patient’s hand. She delivers large doses
emergency room. WINNER Network. As a structural heart nurse navi- of compassion to each of her patients.
er

“I remember being in and out of hospi- gator, Wilmowski is responsible for guiding Now, Wilmowski is taking her knowledge
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tal emergency rooms,” she said. “The nurses and educating patients and their families to help Abrazo’s sister hospitals in Tucson
ial

there who listened, who showed me empa- Sarah through the surgical care journey from pre- start similar programs.
Wilmowski
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thy, who made me laugh even when I could op to one year following surgery. Structural Nurse navigators are relatively new to
hardly breathe, they were my heroes. I heart care focuses on the degenerative dis- many hospital systems, so Wilmowski was
e

wanted to be able to do that for someone
someday.”
Today she indeed does that and in a way
she probably never thought she would.
Working in nursing positions of increasing
responsibility since 2000, Wilmowski joined
Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital in 2014 and
was named to her current post in 2016 as
structural heart nurse navigator.
“Our CEO at the time, Frank Molinaro,
‘volun-told’ me for my current role as a nurse
navigator for our structural heart program,”
she said. “I think he saw that my empathy as
well as my drive were a great fit for being the
glue in our structural heart team.”
TITLE: ease process of the aortic, mitral and tricus-
pid heart valves.
STRUCTURAL HEART Wilmowski serves as a liaison between
NURSE NAVIGATOR patients, family members and caregivers,
O R G A N I Z AT I O N : including physicians, hospital staff and
ancillary service providers. Her job is to
ABRAZO ARIZONA engage all of these stakeholders in the patient
HEART HOSPITAL experience as a way of improving clinical
outcomes, reducing costs and recovery time
and helping patients get back to what’s most
important — their lives.
Wilmowski does everything from helping
with paperwork, reminding patients of pre-
op testing and arranging transportation for
their families. When it’s time for the proce-
able to shape the position by applying her 19
years of experience at her patients’ bedsides.
Thanks to her, Abrazo is able to close the
communication and care gaps while help-
ing to avoid costly hospital readmissions.
“I know I have achieved my goal when I
see that smile of a family member when we
tell them the procedure went well,” Wilm-
owski said. “I know I achieved my goal
when my patient calls me, great joy in his
voice, having just had his one-year post-op
appointment and asking if he can stop by to
show me how great he is doing. That is how
I measure my achievement.”