Rosy Thachil, MD, MBA, FACC, FAMWA, FACVC, Cardiologist at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst

Summary

Podcast Summary: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Episode: Dr. Rosy Thachil, Women’s Cardiovascular Institute at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst

Air Date: April 4, 2026
Host: Mariah Taylor (Assistant Editor)
Guest: Dr. Rosy Thachil, MD, MBA, FACC, FAMWA, FACVC, Director of the Cardiac ICU and Co-Founder of the Women’s Cardiovascular Institute

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Dr. Rosy Thachil’s pioneering work co-founding the Women’s Cardiovascular Institute at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst. The conversation centers on the importance and impact of population-specific specialty care, addressing health equity, the unique needs of women in cardiovascular medicine, and strategies for multidisciplinary healthcare delivery in one of America’s most diverse communities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rationale for Population-Specific Specialty Care

• One Size Doesn’t Fit All
  Dr. Thachil stresses that traditional "one size fits all" healthcare models don’t address the nuanced realities of diverse patient populations.

  • “Patients are not one size fits all... If you want to truly deliver effective care, we have to design programs that acknowledge those realities.”
    — Dr. Thachil [01:20]

• Women Are Underrepresented in Cardiac Care
  She highlights how women have been historically "underrecognized, underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and underrepresented in research," especially in cardiovascular disease—the leading killer of both men and women.

  • Launching the Women’s Cardiovascular Institute is a response to these ongoing disparities.
    [01:40]

2. Program Design & Community Focus

• Serving a Diverse, Multilingual Population
  Elmhurst Hospital’s local population speaks around 250 languages, shaping the program to deliver culturally sensitive, comprehensive care.
  [02:25]

  • “Access to specialized cardiovascular care shouldn’t depend on where you live or your insurance status... It’s really an equity issue.”
    — Dr. Thachil [03:12]

• Comprehensive, Lifespan-Oriented Services
  The Institute offers care that spans prevention through critical illness. Initiatives include:

  • Postpartum Hypertension Program: Recognizes pregnancy as an early cardiovascular "stress test"

  • Post-CICU Clinic: Assists women’s recovery after critical illness

  • Breast Cancer Cardiotoxicity Program: Partners with oncology to mitigate cardiac side effects of cancer therapy
    [03:20–04:00]

  • “Perhaps the most meaningful feedback we hear... is, ‘this is the first time I felt somebody really listened to my symptoms.’”
    — Dr. Thachil [04:12]

3. Addressing High-Demand Services

• Unmet Needs & Growth Areas
  Women’s heart care has been in high demand due to years of unmet need, now being addressed via sub-specialty clinics and initiatives under one umbrella.
  • The program is just a year old, but they are focused on growth and expanding access. [04:36–05:13]

4. Physician Recruitment & Multidisciplinary Care

• Building Diverse Teams
  Recruitment focuses on assembling teams that understand community needs and bring complementary expertise. Core leadership includes varied subspecialties within cardiology and collaborates actively with OB/GYN, oncology, lifestyle medicine, and primary care.
  [05:40–07:03]

  • “Women’s cardiovascular health often unfolds across many life stages... when these specialties are all interconnected, we can actually provide more coordinated, thoughtful, and patient-centered care.”
    — Dr. Thachil [06:40]

5. Addressing Language & Cultural Barriers

• Robust Translation Services
  The hospital uses extensive translation resources and trains for culturally sensitive care, ensuring engagement and understanding across all patient backgrounds. [07:06–07:49]

6. Vision for the Future

• Next Steps for the Institute
  Growth and expansion of existing pathways (like the post-CICU and postpartum hypertension clinics) are top priorities, alongside integrating new technologies for precision medicine.
  [07:59–08:31]

• The Next Five Years in Specialized Care
  Dr. Thachil sees the future as increasingly:

  • Integrated: Closer links between specialties (cardiology, OB, oncology, etc.)

  • Preventive: Earlier intervention and risk detection

  • Data-driven: Leveraging digital health, AI, and analytics to close care gaps

  • “At the end of the day... Equity and access to specialized care for women… should exist in community hospitals and public and municipal systems where the need is actually often the greatest.”
    — Dr. Thachil [09:32]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Program Impact:
  “This is the first time I felt somebody really listened to my symptoms.”
  — Patient feedback, quoted by Dr. Thachil [04:12]

• On Equity:
  “It’s really an equity issue... specialized cardiovascular care shouldn’t depend on where you live or your insurance status.”
  — Dr. Thachil [03:12]

• On the Mission:
  “Making sure that every woman and every patient, regardless of their background or circumstance, receives care that truly reflects their needs.”
  — Dr. Thachil [10:01]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:28] — Dr. Thachil’s Intro and Background
• [01:16] — The rise of population-focused specialty care
• [02:25] — Designing women’s cardiac services for a diverse community
• [03:20–04:00] — Details on core program initiatives
• [04:36] — Services in greatest demand
• [05:40] — Recruiting specialty physicians and team-building
• [07:06] — Meeting the needs for non-English speaking patients
• [07:59] — Institute’s next steps and expansion
• [08:41] — Predictions for the future of specialized care

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Conclusion

Dr. Rosy Thachil presents a compelling vision for equitable, population-focused healthcare—especially in women’s cardiology—emphasizing cultural sensitivity, multidisciplinary collaboration, equity, and forward-thinking use of technology. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of cardiovascular and women’s health, and how community-focused innovation can close persistent health gaps.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm Mariah Taylor, Assistant editor and I'm thrilled to be interviewing Rosie Thatchell, Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and co founder of the Women's Cardiovascular Institute at NYC Health and Hospitals, Elmhurst. Dr. Thatcher, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to learn more about what you're doing at the Women's Institute, but before we dive into that, I'd love to hear a little bit more about you and your background.

[B]

Yeah, thank you for having me. As you mentioned, I run the Cardiac Intensive Care unit here, but we also recently co founded last year the Women's Cardiovascular Institute, and I think this topic is very timely. I know we just came off heart month, but really cardiovascular health is a year round issue, so we love to talk about it every month. This is an institute we co founded between myself, Dr. Gayatrisetia and Dr. Deborah Reynolds. So excited to be here and to to share information about it.

[A]

Absolutely. And as I'm sure you're aware and all of our listeners, there's a lot of systems right now that are opening either service lines or institutes or even clinics specifically for different population groups. So I'd love to just hear your opinion and understanding of what's behind all of this movement towards specialized care by population.

[B]

Yeah, great question. So at its core, it's about recognizing that healthcare has historically been built around a one size fits all model. But patients are not one size fits all. And different populations experience disease differently, they face different barriers to care, and often they arrive in the health system through different pathways also. So if you want to truly deliver effective care, we have to design programs that acknowledge those realities. And cardiovascular disease is a perfect example. It's the number one killer of men and women. Yet women have historically been under recognized, under diagnosed, misdiagnosed and underrepresented in research as well. And so that realization is one of the driving forces behind launching the Women's Cardiovascular Institute at Elmhurst. We wanted to create a program where women's symptoms, risk factors and life experiences, also things like pregnancy, menopause, are fully integrated into cardiovascular care. So in many ways, specialized care by population group is simply just good medicine. It's about meeting patients where they are and then designing care around the realities of their lives.

[A]

Absolutely. And what are some of those changes that you're making to your services to meet the needs of women? Yeah.

[B]

So Elmhurst serves one of the most diverse communities in the world. Our patients actually represent a myriad of cultures, languages, backgrounds, life experiences, Actually, There are about 250 languages spoken within just a small radius of the hospital. So incredibly diverse. This diversity fundamentally shapes how we think about delivering care. Because of that, we recognized that there was a real unmet need for dedicated women's cardiovascular care in this community. Many women we see are not always aware that cardiovascular disease is their leading health risk. What makes our program particularly unique is that it sits within a community and public hospital system. So as you alluded to earlier, many women's heart centers are popping up around the country. Many women's cardiovascular programs sit within large academic medical centers in the country. But access to specialized cardiovascular care shouldn't really depend on where you live or your insurance status or the center that you have access to. It's really an equity issue. And so that's why we felt strongly about building this particular program. We also built this program to be comprehensive across the entire cardiovascular spectrum, from prevention to critical care. So we have a few initiatives that are embedded in our, in our women's heart program. So for example, a postpartum hypertension program. And this program recognizes that pregnancy is often an early cardiovascular stress test. We also have a post CICU clinic, which actually helps our women patients recover after critical illness and in transitioning back to normal life. We also have a breast cancer cardiotoxicity program where we work closely with our oncology colleagues to protect the long term health of the heart. So at the of the day, the goal is not just to treat disease when it appears, but also to identify risk earlier and close gaps in care that disproportionately affect women. And you know, perhaps the most meaningful feedback we hear from our women patients is simply, you know, this is the first time I felt somebody really listened to my symptoms. And I think that's when you know that the model is working.

[A]

Absolutely. That's got to be lovely to hear. And I'd love to dive into that even just a little bit more, because every system's doing these women's services a little bit differently. So for your service area, what are some of the services that are in the highest demand?

[B]

Yeah, so I think women's heart in general is in high demand. Right. We know that women's cardiovascular disease, it's the number one killer. So it was a need that was unmet for years, and now we're able to bring that specialized care to this community. And like I mentioned before, we have other specific programs within the umbrella of the Women's Cardiovascular Institute. So the postpartum hypertension program, the post CICU clinic, The breast cancer cardiotoxicity program, the cardio obstetric program. So really, we're. We're really just in the infancy. This program is only one year old. But we're really, really excited to be able to bring this program to this community.

[A]

Absolutely. And kind of on the other side of things, I'm sure you're very aware that it's really hard to recruit specialty physicians. And right now, our nation is facing a shortage of all types of specialty physicians. But even within cardiology, it can be difficult to find specialty cardiologists. So what are some of your strategies that you're using to help recruit physicians in so that you have the right specialties at your center?

[B]

Yeah, so fundamentally, it starts with building teams that kind of understand the needs of the communities we serve and the women we serve, and then bringing together physicians with complementary expertise. Right. So, you know, I mentioned a slew of programs that are sort of embedded under women's heart. And one of the reasons we can do that is because we have diversity within our women's heart leadership. So if you look at the leadership of our Women's Cardiovascular Institute, Dr. Stedia, Dr. Reynolds and myself, we each bring different areas of focus within cardiology, and those niches are very complementary. So when you combine those perspectives, it allows us to build a program that truly spans the full spectrum of cardiovascular care for women, from prevention and risk assessment to complex and critical illness. And equally important to that is the work we do with other specialties and other colleagues. It's not done in silo. Women's cardiovascular health intersects with many other specialties across the health system. We collaborate closely with our ob gyn colleagues, our oncology colleagues, experts in lifestyle medicine, and of course, our primary care medicine colleagues. Also, I think that multidisciplinary structure is essential because women's cardiovascular health often unfolds across many life stages. Pregnancy, menopause, potentially cancer survivorship, and so many other situations. So when these specialties are all interconnected, we can actually provide more coordinated, thoughtful, and patient centered care.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

And I'd love to kind of go

[A]

back to something you said at the beginning about how your service area has, I think you said about 200 different languages that are spoken. How are you meeting the needs for patients who don't speak English as a first language? Yeah.

[B]

So fortunately, we have a lot of anslave support services. For example, our translation services, they're very, very robust. So we're able to sort of bridge the gaps in communication that way, and we really try very hard to provide culturally sensitive care, particularly within our women's heart clinic where we've got so many different women speaking not only different languages, but coming from different backgrounds, different cultures, bringing their diversity of pathology also. So it's really important to be sort of culturally sensitive in our care delivery.

[A]

Absolutely. Now let's look a little bit to the future. I'd love to hear two things from you. The first is what is the next step for the Women's Institute?

[B]

Yeah, I think this is only the beginning. I think our existing pathways under the Women's Heart Institute, we would love to grow those. Whether it's the post CICU clinic or the breast cancer cardiotoxicity program, our postpartum hypertension program, we would actually love to expand these clinics. And really that's our goal in the next year or two, expansion. But I think it's also a really exciting time, Right, for precision medicine technology. There's so much we can integrate into this women's cardiovascular program. And this is really just a start.

[A]

Absolutely. And kind of with that, I'd love to hear your guess as to how you think specialized care by population might change in the next five years.

[B]

Yeah, I think this is a very timely question. I think we're entering a phase where specialized care will become more integrated, more preventative perhaps, and definitely more data driven. I think we're going to see programs that move earlier in the disease timeline, focusing more on the risk detection prevention rather than just waiting until patients either present with an event or with advanced disease. I think there will also be greater integration between specialties. Cardiovascular care is increasingly intersecting with obstetrics, oncology, endocrinology, critical care. So I think this is really important, especially as we're thinking about women's heart across the lifespan and across the spectrum of care. And I think third, technology is going to play a role in the future. We're going to be using data, digital health, AI, perhaps population level analytics to identify patients who might otherwise fall through the cracks. But at the end of the day, I think one thing that won't change or shouldn't change, I should say, is the core mission. Right. Equity and access to specialized care for women. I just want to highlight that our program specifically, I think it demonstrates that these innovative population focused cardiovascular care programs, they don't have to exist only in the large academic centers. It can and it should exist in community hospitals and public and municipal systems where the need is actually often the greatest. And ultimately the goal is simple, Right. Making sure that every woman and every patient, regardless of their background or circumstance receives care truly reflects their needs.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, this has been so amazing. I loved hearing everything about what you're doing with your Women's Institute. So thank you for taking the time to share with us today. And thank you to our listeners for joining us.

[B]

Of course. Thanks for having me.

[A]

It.