Revolutionary Cardiac Wellness Program to Improve Heart Health Now Offered at Montefiore Einstein Advanced Care—Manhattan West

A life-changing, plant-based diet is the underlying success story of Montefiore Einstein’s Advanced Care–Manhattan West’s revolutionary Cardiac Wellness Program.

The Cardiac Wellness Program, which has inspired similar programs at major hospitals across the country, features a personalized, nutrition-centered approach. Encouraging a whole food and plant-based lifestyle, the goal of the program is to improve heart health and prevent heart disease, along with a range of other serious health issues, including erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes. Montefiore Einstein Advanced Care–Manhattan West’s convenient location across the street from Penn Station and the adjoining Moynihan Train Hall makes the program easily accessible for Manhattanites and commuters.

Robert J. Ostfeld, MD, MSc, FACC, Director, Preventive Cardiology, Montefiore Einstein, and Professor, Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, founded the Cardiac Wellness Program after seeing how adopting a plant-based diet vastly improved his patients’ lives—even when they only removed some but not all animal products.

Dr. Ostfeld meets each patient one on one for a full cardiovascular assessment, where together they review the patient’s medical history and medications, discuss the patient’s needs and goals for heart health and create a roadmap to achieve cardiac wellness. The consultation is designed to address patients’ unique concerns, risk factors, health goals, dietary restrictions and food preferences. Patients touch base with Dr. Ostfeld every six to eight weeks, and additional follow-up visits, either in-person or via telehealth, are available according to individual needs.

The program has led to other projects, including giving inpatients in-room TV access to a documentary about the benefits of a plant-based diet. Montefiore Einstein’s Food and Nutrition Services, with help from Dr. Ostfeld and hospital dieticians, created tasty, plant-based meals that are ethnically and culturally relevant to Bronx residents, including soups and chilis, which are so popular they consistently sell out at the Weiler and Moses cafeterias.

The program sparked the Montefiore Einstein Preventive Cardiology Conference, and it prompted Albert Einstein College of Medicine to become one of the first medical schools to integrate plant-based preventative medicine into its curriculum. Dr. Ostfeld also has contributed to an article published in the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention that acts as a how-to for other systems to create plant-based meals for overnight hospital patients.

Dr. Ostfeld attributes the continued success and expansion of the Cardiac Wellness Program to a focus on patients.

“I feel very fortunate to have had the freedom to start and grow our Cardiac Wellness Program,” he said. “The main reason we were able to develop our now internationally lauded program was because we were at Montefiore Einstein, because this institution sees the value of helping patients become healthier. Accordingly, we have had major health systems from across the United States reach out to us, as they were interested in replicating our program.”

To learn more, visit the Cardiac Wellness Program at Montefiore Einstein Advanced Care website or call 212-324-4222.