Profile: Dr. Todd Langager follows the heart

CEDAR RAPIDS — It was a change of heart that lead Dr. Todd Langager to Cedar Rapids.

'Ever since high school, I knew I wanted to be a physician,' said the 64-year-old cardiologist. 'But in college, I trained as a family physician.'

He went to the University of Iowa's medical school and then completed both a family practice residency and internal medicine residency before opening an independent practice in Ottumwa, where he worked for several years.

But he realized his real love was cardiology, which lead him to another two years of training — but this time it was a cardiology fellowship at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh.

'It was a long path,' he said.

He moved to Cedar Rapids in 1986, where he's been practicing since — first as part of an independent practice and now with UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Hospital.

Langager sees fewer patients these days than he used to, as he has taken on more administrative tasks — helping shape the hospital's larger goals, especially when it comes to population health management, or better coordination of care while also improving quality and decreasing costs.

That transition has been bittersweet, he said.

'The most satisfying part of health care is working with patients,' he said. 'You have such a strong relationship with them and you value the trust they give you. ...

But there are tremendous benefits to being involved with large initiatives and helping structure things that will help many people.'

Projects such as getting the Heart and Vascular Institute up and running. The institute, which began in April 2015, is made up of physicians from St. Luke's Hospital and UnityPoint Clinic Cardiology and cardiovascular surgeons from Physicians' Clinic of Iowa.

It took about two years to figure out the reorganization, and was a lot of work, he said, But it was well worth it.

The goal of the institute is to offer a better patient experience, better coordinated care, reduced costs, clinical trials and research and new technology to aid in cardiovascular care.

Those involved already have developed a new technique that will allow physicians to insert artificial valves into a patient's heart without the need for open-heart surgery. Langager expects doctors with the institute will perform the first procedure in early 2016.

'That is a significant early benefit,' he said.