Ten years ago, individuals from west Georgia experiencing a heart attack likely had a long ride ahead of them.
The first leg of their journey was a trip to the local hospital, where a series of tests would be conducted to determine if, in fact, the individual was having a heart attack. And then the ambulance would rush that person from a local hospital to another hospital in Atlanta — about 50 miles away, potentially in heavy traffic — where an interventional procedure was available to clear the blocked artery causing the heart attack and possibly save the person’s life.
In the meantime, in the back of the ambulance en route to and between hospitals, as well as during the testing, the individual’s heart was starved of oxygen and the muscles that comprised the heart began to die.
In October 2006, Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton began using the same interventional, minimally invasive procedure available at larger medical centers in Atlanta to clear blocked arteries and save hearts.
Since then, the service has grown to include Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica — which began offering angioplasty and stenting in September 2015 — and now has touched more than 4,200 hearts with an angioplasty-related mortality rate of zero.
Angioplasty is a minimally invasive approach to treating a heart attack.
“During a heart attack, an artery that supplies oxygen-rich blood to the heart becomes blocked, starving the heart for oxygen,” said Shazib Khawaja, MD, a board-certified interventional cardiologist with Tanner Heart & Vascular Specialists and medical operations leader for Tanner Heart Care. “Without oxygen, the muscles that comprise the heart begin to die. The best treatment is to clear the blockage as quickly as possible, restoring the flow of blood to the heart and saving as much heart muscle as possible.”
With angioplasty, a specially trained interventional cardiologist inserts a long, thin, hollow tube called a catheter into a blood vessel (often in the groin, though sometimes in the wrist). The catheter is maneuvered through the blood vessels and into the blocked artery and into the site of the blockage. Once the catheter is in place, the balloon is inflated at the narrowed area of the coronary artery. This presses the fatty tissue against the sides of the artery making more room for blood flow.
Coronary stents are now used in nearly all angioplasty procedures. A stent is a tiny, expandable metal mesh coil that is put into the newly-opened area of the artery to help keep the artery from narrowing or closing again.
“It’s a life-saving procedure that, 10 years and a few months ago, was available almost exclusively at the large medical centers in Atlanta or Birmingham,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “Local hospitals could evaluate patients, and they could offer special medications called ‘clot busters’ to try and clear the blockage with medicinal therapy, but the best and most reliable treatment was at least 50 miles away — through traffic.
“To save lives, we either had to move people closer to Atlanta, or bring that service to west Georgia,” Howard said.
In just the past year, more than 420 angioplasty procedures have been performed between Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica, and the number of procedures has been above 400 every year since 2010, indicating the need for the service in the region.
“Our region continues to have a higher rate of cardiovascular disease than the rest of the nation,” said Christopher Arant, MD, a board-certified interventional cardiologist with Tanner Heart & Vascular Specialists. “Tanner has certainly taken steps to address that, with efforts to prevent chronic disease and encourage more physical activity and healthier diets. But these efforts don’t immediately reverse a trend that has been growing for decades. That’s why we have to make sure that the most effective treatments are available close to home, especially when time is so critical in relation to outcomes.”
According to Howard, the efforts to build a leading interventional cardiology program in a community hospital were first met with some skepticism.
“There’s the perception that, though Tanner is closer, the services in Atlanta are better,” said Howard. “But consider this: In the more than 10 years that Tanner has offered angioplasty and stenting in more than 4,200 patients, numerous lives have been saved with zero deaths directly related to the procedure. That’s a testament to the level of care people can expect from their local health system here in west Georgia and east Alabama.”
Earlier this year, Tanner’s cardiac services continued to grow, establishing accredited chest pain centers in Carrollton and Villa Rica with streamlined practices to ensure the fastest clinical response to heart attack treatment possible.
“We continue to evaluate our procedures so we know that the neighbors who come to Tanner for heart care are receiving the best care possible, based on the latest research and clinical evidence,” said Dr. Khawaja. “And every day, we’re seeing the result of that work when we have the opportunity to save another life.”
For more information on the cardiac services available at Tanner, visit www.TannerHeartCare.org