Lawrence cardiac lab sees major intake in opening months
A new $8.6 million cardiac catheterization laboratory started taking patients in May at NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, and business has been thumping.
In less than two months, the new installment ”” referred to as a cath lab ”” has served more than 100 patients, including several heart attack patients who have “all done extremely well and they”™ve all been discharged within two to three days,” said Dr. Mark A. Apfelbaum, the lab”™s director.
The lab, which is open 24/7, is what Apfelbaum called “state-of-the-art” and consists of its own team of physician assistants, nurses, doctors, interventional cardiologists and angioplasty specialists who have been assigned to Lawrence from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.
- Dr. Mark A. Apfelbaum, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital.
Describing the lab, Apfelbaum said, “It”™s sophisticated X-ray equipment that allows us to image various aspects of the heart, the coronary anatomy, the valves, and so on, in ways that really can”™t be otherwise done as clearly.”
Apfelbaum previously served as director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at White Plains Hospital, before the hospital joined the Montefiore Health System. The WPH lab was the first at a community hospital in the county licensed to offer elective and angioplasty services, according to the hospital”™s website.
Diagnostic tests, including angiograms, are administered to patients who have nuanced symptoms that have to do with the heart and its arteries. The lab is also equipped to handle certain emergency situations that could require stenting or balloon angioplasty, which are both procedures designed to facilitate better blood flow in the coronary arteries.
An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 said death rates caused by coronary heart disease in the U.S. have decreased substantially between 1980 and 2000. The study found that during that 20-year period, deaths from coronary heart disease fell to 266.8 from 542.9 per 100,000 people.
Despite the drop in deaths during those decades, Dr. Laura L. Forese, president of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System, said the hospital system”™s data showed there was a need in Westchester County.
“We could tell that a significant number of patients in lower Westchester County were coming into Manhattan for services,” she said. “Patients were traveling into Manhattan for elected cardiac procedures,” so the health system decided to open a cath lab in Bronxville, hoping it would be more convenient for patients.
And the lower Westchester community has tested the new lab and team, which have received some early positive feedback.
Howard Frey, of Yonkers, was alert and answering questions hours after coming out of a procedure to receive four stents.
“I thought I was only going to get one stent in and wound up with four,” he said.
The doctor who did the procedure, Kumar Kalapatapu, said the angiogram that followed Frey”™s initial stress test showed blockages in more than one artery.
“The stress test gives you a road map that maybe this area of the artery is blocked, but once we go inside we can find more arteries that need to be fixed,” Kalapatapu said.
At Frey”™s side was his wife, Jean, who said she was pleased with the care her husband had received and was surprised at how quickly and smoothly the cath lab team was able to take on her husband”™s case. Howard, she said, had a stress test on a Wednesday and by the next evening the couple knew he would need surgery. The cardiologist, she said, moved the paper work along and the procedure was scheduled to take place a few days after.
“We were shocked that it went so fast,” she said. “We”™ve used Lawrence before for other types of surgery, but for this type we”™re just very happy that it was available.”