Cardiology

If you’re unsure about a heart issue, our cardiac services team offers peace of mind with careful evaluations and treatments for many cardiovascular conditions.

Conducting thorough diagnostics is at the core of effective treatment. As such, your cardiologist may order tests, including:

• Cardiac lab tests
• Chest X-rays
• Computerized tomography angiogram
• Coronary calcium score screening
• Computerized tomography (CT) angiogram
• Dobutamine stress test
• Outpatient stress test
• Stress echocardiogram
• Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE)
• Transthoracic echocardiogram

Cardiac catheterization is a minimally invasive procedure where a surgeon inserts a very small catheter (a hollow tube) into an artery or vein in the groin or wrist. Then, they guide the catheter through to the aorta and into the heart to evaluate how well it functions.

Performed in a specialized lab, specialists use cardiac catheterization to check blood flow in the coronary arteries, assess blood flow and blood pressure in heart chambers, gauge how well the heart valves are functioning and evaluate the function of the heart walls for defects.

Our hospital is your partner against heart disease. Working with an interdisciplinary team of specialists who collaborate to treat patients with complex heart and valve conditions, our cardiac surgeons provide a full range of standard and leading-edge procedures, including:

CABG is a common surgical treatment. In this procedure, a cardiac surgeon takes a blood vessel from another part of the body to route blood around blockages in the coronary arteries and restore adequate blood circulation to the heart.

Our program offers two types of surgeries that improve heart valve function:

• Mini-sternotomy for aortic valve repair or replacement — In this minimally invasive procedure, a small incision is made and the sternum is partially split to allow access to the heart to repair or replace the aortic valve. The result is less pain, less scarring and a quicker recovery time compared to a traditional sternotomy procedure.
• Mitral valve surgery — The mitral valve keeps blood flowing from the left atrium of the heart and into the left ventricle. If the mitral valve is hardened, blood is prevented from moving forward. If the mitral valve is too loose, blood tends to flow backward. This surgical procedure addresses these conditions.

If you're brought to our emergency room due to a heart attack or cardiac surgery, our emergency care specialists stabilize your vitals. Once your symptoms are steady, our cardiac team takes over your treatment and moves you to our cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) for around-the-clock monitoring.

This unit allows our highly trained staff to treat you in a calm, quiet setting and give you individualized care. It's equipped to provide continuous monitoring and one-on-one nursing care for the first 24 hours of your stay. Your care will continue until your vitals are stable enough to move you to a unit with a less intense level of care or you're released to return home.

Our center has achieved accreditation by the American College of Cardiology (ACC). This means our center has reached a high level of expertise in treating patients who arrive with heart attack symptoms. Our cardiac care team emphasizes standardized diagnostic and treatment programs which allow for more efficient and effective evaluations for rapid treatment of chest pain and other heart attack symptoms. We also promote a healthier lifestyle to reduce the risk factors for heart attack. Our accreditation means:

• Better care
• Better communication
• Better prognosis
• Better quality of life
• Faster treatment

By becoming an accredited Chest Pain Center, our program has enhanced your quality of care as a cardiac patient and has demonstrated our commitment to higher standards.

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, a service of our Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Program, includes exercise and education for patients who have experienced or are at high risk for a heart attack, heart surgery or cardiac intervention such as angioplasty.

You can expect to participate in exercise, emotional support and education to help you reach peak performance after cardiac care.

If you are a patient with a high-risk condition, our care management program focuses on educating you and your family to coordinate follow-up care to reduce the occurrence of potentially avoidable readmissions. The program starts at the time of admission, follows you through your hospital stay and continues 30 days after discharge. Our goal: positive outcomes and an improved quality of life.

Make sure to learn the early warning signs of a heart attack and what to do before it worsens. Medical City Decatur helps educate the community through the use of Early Heart Attack Care (EHAC). People are encouraged to become active bystanders to possibly save a life.

• American College of Cardiology