Emergency heart attack procedure approved

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St. Luke’s Warren Campus is now providing emergency angioplasties to heart attack patients. 

After receiving approval from the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH), interventional cardiologists in the hospital’s cardiac catheterization laboratory began providing this emergent service to open narrowed and blocked coronary arteries using thin wires, tiny balloons and wire mesh stents for patients experiencing a heart attack June 19, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) said. 

Dr. Narpinder Singh, medical director of the St. Luke’s Warren cardiac catheterization laboratory, said this certification enhances the hospital’s ability to deliver lifesaving care to heart attack patients using advanced imaging technology and non-surgical techniques. 

“Providing emergency angioplasties at the hospital meets a growing need in this community so patients can be treated faster and recover closer to home,” said Singh.  

St. Luke’s Warren will have 24-hour on-call capability to provide coronary angioplasty, Singh said. 

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and in New Jersey, where nearly 19, 000 residents died from it in 2017, according to SLUHN. More than 800,000 Americans will suffer a heart attack each year caused by the buildup of fatty plaque in a heart artery.  

To qualify for licensure from the DOH, the hospital had to meet several quality standards and hire additional interventional cardiologists and other certified staff to ensure the 24/7 availability of heart-attack treatment teams, SLUHN said. The hospital acquired special GE Health imaging equipment four years ago for seeing inside the heart and heart arteries. 

Non-urgent diagnostic catheterizations that assess the health of blood vessels of the heart have been provided at the hospital since the early 2000’s, SLUHN said. Other similar procedures, including treatment of peripheral vascular disease with angiography, are routinely performed at the Warren Campus. 

The St. Luke’s Network currently operates four cardiac catheterization laboratories in addition to the facility at Warren Campus: St. Luke’s Bethlehem, Anderson, Allentown and Monroe.