Heart House News
Inspira Introduces Emergency Angioplasty
TheDailyJournal.com | December 3, 2013
VINELAND - Inspira Medical Center. Vineland recently received approval from the state Department of Health to perform emergency angioplasty, also known as emergency PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention).
 Helen Bruce (center), 61, of Greenwich was the first patient at Inspira Medical Center Vineland to have emergency angioplasty performed at the hospital. She's pictured with (from left) registered nurses Michele Zucconi, Jason Manuola, Andereh Tahmasiyan, Jie Lu and Michael Foster, and Dr. Andrew Zinn, who performed the procedure. |
The hospital's emergency department and cardiac catheterization laboratory physicians and staff have begun using the lifesaving emergency procedure for heart attack patients.
"The ability for us to perform emergency PCI right here in Vineland will significantly speed up treatment for those in the community who are having a heart attack," Dr. Andrew Zinn, medical director of interventional cardiology at the hospital, said. "The approval builds on our medical center's 2011 accreditation as a chest pain center. Together with local EMS, Inspira paramedics and the hospital's dedicated emergency department staff, our experienced physicians and cardiac catheterization lab staff will be able to save more patients' heart muscle and ultimately save more lives."
Emergency PCI is an intervention to open clogged arteries and restore blood flow to the heart for patients having a segment elevation myocardial infarction heart attack. In order to perform emergency PCI, a physician must have performed a minimum of 75 such procedures during the previous year. The hospital has six board-certified cardiologists on staff who are state-approved to perform the procedure.
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