Diagnosis and Treatment

At Salina Regional Health Center, we offer a full array of heart services for one simple reason: people in our region need to have comprehensive heart services close to home.

Within The Heart Center of Salina Regional Health Center, an array of diagnostic and treatment options are available.  Our capable physicians and staff have state-of-the-art diagnostic and operating room equipment.

Emergency Department
Staff in our emergency department are equipped to respond when a patient arrives complaining of chest pain.  All emergency department clinical staff are certified in advanced cardiac life support, as are the intensive care unit clinical staff and many of the surgery nurses.

Emergency department employees, physicians and the pharmacy staff administer 'clot busting' drugs in much less time than the national norm when patients are suffering a heart attack.  Patients here receive the drugs in less than 30 minutes.  The national norm is 37 to 40 minutes.  These drugs can spare heart muscle damage and consequently save lives, but the drugs must be given quickly.  Minutes can make a huge difference.

Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit
Patients recover from heart surgery or a heart attack in a state-of-the-art Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit.  Staff closely monitor patients for several hours after surgery, when patients are moved to the cardiac stepdown Unit.

Cardiac Rehabilitation
The recovery immediately following heart surgery or a heart attack is just part of the story.  To fully recover, patients also undergo a period of intensive cardiac rehabilitation.  Here, a team of nurses, therapists and dietitians take a team approach to helping patients learn new, healthier habits.

Tests available at Salina Regional Health Center for diagnosing heart disease include:

• An Electrocardiogram records the electrical signals traveling throughout the heart muscle.  Small electrodes are placed on a patient's chest, which read these signals and record them on paper.  Patients hospitalized here after a heart attack will have several of these tests throughout their stay.

• Echocardiograms are moving pictures taken with sound waves.  Physicians can watch the heart's movements on a television screen.

• Exercise Stress Tests (sometimes called treadmill tests), shows medical professionals how the heart is working.  With most stress tests, the patient will walk on a treadmill so that the heart has to pump more blood to the body.  The test can show if there is a lack of blood supply through the arteries that go to the heart.

• Cardiac Catheterization tests help doctors identify artery, valve or muscle problems with the heart.  These tests are done in the cardiac catheterization lab at Salina Regional.  Your cardiologist will insert a thin tube, or catheter, into an artery (either through the groin or the arm) to the heart.  The catheter carries a dye so that the arteries show up well on x-rays that are taken during the procedure.  These x-rays point out any problems in the coronary arteries to the cardiologist.

Treatment options at Salina Regional Health Center
Once heart disease has been diagnosed, your physicians will determine the best course of treatment for you.  At Salina Regional, the following treatment options are offered:

• Angioplasty is a procedure that pushes fatty plaque in the vessels against the vessel walls so that more blood can flow through them.  Angioplasty is performed by an interventional cardiologist, who uses a balloon-tipped catheter.  It is inserted through a sheath in the patient's groin.  Once the tip is in the blocked portion of the artery, the doctor inflates the balloon, which pushes the plaque out of the way.

• A stent is sometimes placed in the artery following coronary angioplasty.  A stent is a small, stainless steel tube and it may be placed in the blocked portion of the artery, to keep it from narrowing again.

• A cardiothoracic surgeon may recommend a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (bypass surgery) when an artery has been too damaged to treat with angioplasty or stents.  To do the graft, the surgeon takes a healthy vein from the leg or from the chest, and it is attached above and below each blocked area in the coronary artery.  During bypass surgery, a patient is under general anesthesia and a heart/lung bypass machine is used to circulate blood during the surgery.  To operate on the heart, the surgeon makes an incision down the center of the chest and the middle of the breastbone.  Other incisions are made to obtain the veins used for the grafts.

• A cardiothoracic surgeon also performs Heart Valve Surgery for some patients.  These valves open and close as the heart pumps, and may not work efficiently if they have become diseased.  Mitral, aortic (most common) and tricuspid valves can be replaced.  Valve Surgery is similar to Bypass Surgery in that a patient is under general anesthesia, is placed on a heart-lung machine and the chest is opened through the breastbone.