The Heart & Vascular Institute’s cardiac catheterization program, with more than 4,500 procedures each year, ranks among the most substantial in the Northeast.
“Science and research studies have consistently shown that high-volume proceduralists have the lowest complication rates compared with lower-volume operators,” says Dr. Jeffrey Hirst, an interventional cardiologist who joined the Hartford Hospital staff in 1987. “Our sole commitment to the Catheterization Lab also gives us the ability to organize and execute more complex procedures that the patient otherwise could not get in the state. And we routinely perform new cath-lab interventional techniques before any other cath-lab in the region.”
The Heart & Vascular Institute also believes in offering patients the least intrusive procedures with quicker recovery and a shorter hospital stay. That’s why up to 70 percent of our procedures are now performed using the wrist, not the femoral artery (groin), as the catheter's entry point. This represents a rapid acceleration of a national trend: In 2015, only about 30 percent of catheterization cases in the United States entered through the wrist.
The breadth of services offered by the Heart & Vascular Institute’s cardiac catheterization program is rare in New England, with everything from diagnostic testing to life-saving treatment for heart-attack patients airlifted by Life Star helicopter, a Hartford HealthCare signature.