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April 2, 2008

Kent Hospital gets permission for angioplasty program

Kent Hospital today received the state health director's permission to set up a primary angioplasty program for acute heart attack victims.

The hospital will be allowed to develop and offer an emergency procedure in which a stent or balloon is inserted in an artery to restore blood flow following a heart attack -- a procedure called primary percutaneous coronary intervention.

“This program will provide residents of Kent and Washington counties suffering a heart attack more rapid access to a procedure that can help save lives," said the state Health Departmenrt director, Dr. David R. Gifford, in a statement.

To see that the program is carried out safely, the Health Services Counsel and the state Department of Health imposed several conditions:

* Kent Hospital will be required to get "oversight and support" from Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence, including access to Rhode Island Hospital's open-heart surgery program were there any emergencies during a stent/balloon insertion procedure.

* Kent Hospital also will have to buy, equip and maintain devices called EKG units that can electronically send results to the hospital for all emergency medical services units -- rescue trucks -- serving Washington and Kent counties.

* The hospital will need to train emergency medical services personnel, on an ongoing basis, how to use EKGs.

* The hospital will work with the area's emergency medical services to set policies to allow heart attack patients to be taken directly to medical buildings with stent/balloon insertion procedure capabilities.

* The hospital must devise agreements, called memorandums of understanding, with South County, Westerly and Newport hospitals to ensure there is a standard way to screen people rapidly for the need for angioplasty. And the agreements will need to set policy for moving people suffering from heart attacks from those hospitals, which don't offer the procedure, to Kent Hospital.

* The length of time it takes for the hospital to perform the procedure will need to be reported to the state Health Department.

* The hospital will need to participate in a national registry on coronary catheterization and the stent/balloon insertion procedure and report regularly to the state Health Department "on quality, outcome, and volume measures comparing Kent with other hospitals nationally in the registry," the release says.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 4:00 PM | Permalink

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EMT | April 2, 2008 6:02 PM link

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