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A less invasive option for Cape cardiac patients
The Interventional Cardiology program at Cape Cod Hospital has been widely recognized for its consistently superior level of care. In 2008, the hosptial was ranked first among 771 hospitals nationwide for having the lowest risk-adjusted mortality for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention procedures (PCI, formerly known as angioplasties) by the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

The Interventional Cardiology program demonstrated its excellence recently when it achieved an unheard of door-to-balloon time of 12 minutes for a patient who needed an emergency PCI procedure. ACC guidelines say that most lives are saved if the door-to-balloon time (the time from which the patient enters the hospital to when a balloon device is inserted to open the blocked artery) is 90 minutes or less. To have done it in 12 minutes is a true testimony to the quality of the Interventional Cardiology program at Cape Cod Hospital.

"That's a piece of information that demonstrates a tremendous community effort," said Richard Zelman, M.D, F.A.C.C., who heads the Cape Cod Healthcare Interventional Cardiology program. Paramedics from all of Cape Cod's fre departments are an essential part of the program, since they are trained to recognize the urgency of a patient's condition and rush them to the hospital.

"We've been successful with the sickest patient group - heart attack victims," said Dr. Zelman, who, together with his colleague, Alanna Coolong, M.D., perform the vast majority of PCI procedures at Cape Cod Hospital. "This success has translated very well with regard to the thousands of non-emergency patients we now treat with elective angioplasties."

With a PCI procedure, a catheter is inserted into an artery in the groin or the wrist and then guided to the blocked narrowed artery. A tiny balloon is expanded to allow blood to flow through the artery more freely and, about 90% of the time, a stent is inserted that prevents the artery from re-contracting after the procedure is complete. The less invasive nature of the procedure makes it convenient and safe, and very little recovery time is required. Most patients leave the hospital the next morning.