Bayshore Medical Center Now Providing a Procedure to Prevent Heart Attack

Now providing elective angioplasty, a scheduled procedure that cardiologists use to open clogged coronary arteries, with stents, in patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease.

The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) has licensed Hackensack Meridian Bayshore Medical Center to provide elective angioplasty, a scheduled procedure that cardiologists use to open clogged coronary arteries, with stents, in patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease.  This minimally invasive treatment restores blood supply to the heart muscle and helps prevent heart attack, heart failure and other forms of heart disease. 

For many years Bayshore has provided emergency angioplasty for patients experiencing a heart attack and cardiac catheterization procedures to diagnose heart disease.  This additional licensure enables cardiologists to perform diagnostic testing and if needed, necessary treatment during one visit.  Recently, the medical center completed its first elective case successfully with the patient now home and recuperating well.

Clinical studies conducted at hospitals across the nation, like the Atlantic Cardiovascular Patient Outcomes Research Team Trial-Elective Angioplasty Study (C-PORT-E) that began in 2008, have shown the safety and efficacy of providing elective angioplasty in hospitals that provide it during a patient emergency.  

“Residents of Holmdel and the surrounding communities have reason to celebrate, as they can now schedule life-changing elective angioplasty procedures close to home,” said Todd Way, MSHA, regional president, Hackensack Meridian Health central market. “And, with additional hospitals around the state also becoming licensed, any delay in care that previously could occur due to limited patient capacity will be greatly reduced.” 

During angioplasty, also called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a tiny expandable metal mesh coil called a stent is placed in a newly open artery to help keep it from narrowing or closing again.  During PCI, a long, thin tube (catheter) is put into a blood vessel and guided to the blocked coronary artery.  The catheter has a tiny balloon at its tip.  Once the catheter is in place, the balloon is inflated at the narrowed area of the heart artery.  This presses the blockage plaque or blood clot against the sides of the artery, making more room for blood flow.  Fluoroscopy, a special type of X-ray, helps the cardiologist find the blockages in the heart arteries as a contrast dye moves through them.  

Bayshore’s cardiac Multi-Specialty Interventional Suite provides patients with the most advanced cardiac technology, an American College of Cardiology (ACC) Accredited Chest Pain Center with PCI, pacemaker procedures with a 5-Star rating from Healthgrades and cardiac rehabilitation services.  The medical center received the ACC’s 2021 NCDR Chest Pain - MI Registry Platinum Quality award and the American Heart Association’s 2021 Get with the Guidelines- Heart Failure Gold Plus Award recognizing exemplary heart attack care and care for heart failure, respectively.

Hospitals providing angioplasty have arrangements in place with local facilities that provide open-heart surgery in case of emergency.  Bayshore’s backup facility is Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Monmouth and Ocean counties' only minimally invasive and open-heart surgery program.  

“Although elective angioplasty is new to Bayshore, the community can rest assured the medical center’s cardiologists and nurses are experienced in providing angioplasty to enhance and save the lives of patients,” said Richard M. Neibart, M.D., FACS, clinical medical director, Cardiovascular Care Transformation Service, Hackensack Meridian Health and chief, Cardiac Surgery, Jersey Shore University Medical Center.  “As part of Hackensack Meridian, Bayshore’s patients are connected to a comprehensive range of leading-edge technologies treating heart disease and world-renowned cardiac experts, right here in New Jersey.”

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of disability and death for women and men.  With this in mind, Hackensack Meridian has developed an interdisciplinary team of award winning heart specialists.  Collaboratively, they provide a comprehensive, state-wide program for identifying, treating and managing heart and vascular conditions for patients of all ages.  

This includes providing life-saving cardiovascular care for the most complex patient cases at one of New Jersey’s few minimally invasive and open-heart surgery programs at The Heart and Vascular Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center, and at Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

In May 2021, the NJDOH enabled the state’s hospitals to begin an application process, including extensive data collection and a site survey, to receive licensure to become a full-service catheterization lab for diagnostic testing or add an elective angioplasty service to a preexisting emergency angioplasty service.  Eight Hackensack Meridian Health medical centers in Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Hudson and Essex counties have applied for expanded services.

For more information, visit www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/services/cardiovascular/.  To schedule a CT Calcium Scoring scan, which provides early detection of heart attack risk, or for a free physician referral, call 844-HMH-WELL.