It took only about 24 hours for the first patient to take advantage of the lifesaving heart care that became available at Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica on Aug. 31.
Around midnight at the close of that first day, a patient experiencing chest pain and pain radiating down his arm was brought into the emergency department by loved ones, triggering the hospital’s “heart alert” protocol. Initial tests were performed and the catheterization team and an interventional cardiologist rushed in.
Quickly, the patient was brought to the catheterization lab at the hospital, where board-certified interventional cardiologist Shazib Khawaja, MD, used angioplasty and stenting — also called percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI — to reopen the blocked artery that was depriving the patient’s heart of oxygen-rich blood.
“This highlights the need we have for this service in this community,” said Dr. Khawaja. “We anticipated a slower start for the program in Villa Rica, but that’s the thing about heart attacks: they can occur at any time. When they do, it’s best to have treatment close by.”
During a heart attack, an artery that supplies the heart with blood becomes blocked, leaving the heart deprived of oxygen. With PCI, an interventional cardiologist uses a small balloon on the end of a catheter, threaded through a patient’s arteries to the site of a blockage, to clear the blockage and quickly restore blood flow to the heart.
Performed fast enough, PCI can save heart tissue and lower the risk of long-term damage to the heart, since heart tissue that dies due to lack of oxygen does not come back. Often, a thin tube of wire mesh called a “stent” is also placed inside the artery to prevent future blockages.
That night, it took only two minutes for the patient to receive an electrocardiogram after reporting to the emergency department, and a little over an hour for the PCI procedure to be performed — a time much faster than the national average.
In October 2006, angioplasty and stenting services became available at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton, which now performs almost 500 of the procedures each year. Before that, patients experiencing a heart attack often had to be transported to hospitals in Atlanta to receive angioplasty and stenting, which caused a delay in treatment when every minute is crucial.
“Now that PCI is available in Villa Rica, this care is available much closer to where our neighbors in Carroll, Douglas and Paulding counties live, work and play,” said Bonnie Boles, MD, MBA, administrator of Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica. “We’re making great heart care closer and faster.”
The expansion of PCI care comes at a time when Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica is experiencing further growth and acclaim for patient care. In March, the facility was named to Truven Health Analytics’ 100 Top Hospitals list for the second consecutive year — placing among just three Georgia hospitals on the list. More recently, the hospital was named among the nation’s “100 Great Community Hospitals” for the second consecutive year by Becker’s Hospital Review, which cited the facility’s high patient satisfaction and quality scores.
Earlier this year, plans were announced for major facility and service expansions at Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica, including an expanded emergency department, surgical services center and maternity center, as part of Tanner’s Advancing Health initiative.
For more information on Tanner Heart Care or to find a heart specialist on Tanner’s medical staff, call 770.214.CARE (2273) or visit www.TannerHeartCare.org.