FMC cardiac cath celebrates 25 years
Certified Chest Pain Center Advanced certification in heart failure care
Top 10 percent in the nation for medical excellence and patient safety in cardiac care
Top 10 percent in the nation for medical excellence and patient safety in heart attack treatment
Top 10 percent in the nation for medical excellence in heart failure treatment
These national rankings from CareChex, an information service of Quantros Inc., and certifications for Floyd Medical Center’s cardiology program from The Joint Commission and the American College of Cardiology are the result of 25 years of experience.
FMC first introduced cardiac catheterization in 1992, as a limited service in a mobile lab. Today, FMC has three cardiac cath labs that provide standard catheterization in addition to interventional cardiology procedures such as balloon angioplasty, the insertion of medicated stents to keep blocked blood vessels open and the implantation of defibrillators and pacemakers.
FMC opened its first in-hospital cath lab in 2001. Since that time FMC has performed nearly 17,000 cardiac catheterizations. The hospital began offering interventional cardiology in 2009, adding balloon angioplasty, stenting, intravascular ultrasound and care for STEMIs, a very serious heart attack in which at least one major heart artery is blocked.
In addition to these services, FMC’s cath lab also provides tilt-table studies and cardioversions, a procedure used to convert an abnormal heart rate to a normal rhythm, along with transesophageal echocardiography. Transesophageal echocardiography uses sound waves to create high-quality, moving pictures of the heart and blood vessels.
FMC’s care of the cardiac patient does not end in the cath lab. Cardiology patients who require nursing care either recover in the hospital’s newly remodeled and expanded 26-bed intensive care unit or in the Cardiac Stepdown unit, where patients are carefully monitored. After discharge, many cardiac patients also choose FMC for Cardiac Rehabilitation and education. The organization operates a cardiac rehab program in Polk County, where patients receive heart education and are monitored during exercise to slowly build their strength and endurance.
And in this silver anniversary year of service, FMC is taking the message of heart health and heart attack prevention into the community, said Keri Bush, chest pain coordinator.
FMC’s Heart team offers Early Heart Attack Care education, instruction in Hands-only CPR, stress reduction education and even cooking classes with take-home recipe cards to corporate partners, community groups, schools and churches, Bush said.
“Hands-only CPR is CPR without mouth-to-mouth breaths,” Bush said. “It is recommended for use by people who see a teen or adult suddenly collapse in an out-of-hospital setting, such as at home, at work or in a park, and consists of two easy steps: Call 911 and perform chest compressions at a rate of 100 compressions per minute.”
These chest compressions will circulate oxygenated blood through the patient’s circulatory system, buying precious, life-saving time until trained help arrives, she said.