GROVE CITY, PA. Hospital will add heart catheterizations

United Community could eventually do stent implantations on blocked arteries.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GROVE CITY, Pa. -- United Community Hospital should be performing low-risk heart catheterizations in about four months.
Anthony P. Zelenka, chief executive officer, said Monday that the hospital's board of trustees gave the administration permission earlier this month to start the process for implementing the test for coronary blockages.
He estimated the program cost of at $600,000 and said a General Electric digital mobile C-arm X-ray unit with a cardiac platform has already been ordered and should arrive within three or four months.
Additional equipment such as a patient monitoring system will be ordered soon, he said.
Mercer County's other two hospitals, Sharon Regional Health System and UPMC Horizon, already do heart catheterizations, a procedure in which a dye is injected into arteries serving the heart to look for blockages that could be causing angina or could cause a heart attack.
Forum Health Northside Medical Center and St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown as well as Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren do them as well.
Looking ahead
This program could eventually lead to United Community doing artery stent implantation surgery -- stents resemble the spring of a ball-point pen and are used to keep clogged arteries open -- but there are no plans to do heart bypass surgeries here, Zelenka said.
The hospital already has entered into an agreement with Dr. David Lasorda and his Cardiology Associates group of Pittsburgh to perform the catheterizations, Zelenka said, noting he expects the hospital to do between two and four of the procedures every week.
Lasorda and Cardiology Associates do thousands of the procedures each year at UPMC in Pittsburgh and other western Pennsylvania hospitals, he said.
The board of trustees authorized the hiring of Health Care Visions Ltd. of Pittsburgh to help develop the program.
Zelenka came to United Community from that hospital a month ago but said he didn't bring the idea for the program with him.
It was already under consideration here before his arrival, he said.
"Cardiology is an important part of what a hospital does," Zalenka said, explaining that people have to go out of the area to have the test done.
"Not only will this addition expand our services to better meet our patients' needs, but it also offers a safe, fast and effective diagnosis of vascular and cardiovascular disorders just where we need it -- close to home," Zalenka said.
Patients diagnosed with blocked arteries will have the option of choosing where they want follow-up treatment done, should stent or bypass surgery be warranted, he said.