Dignity Health Merced | helloHealthy | Summer 2018

6 DignityHealth.org/Merced | Summer 2018 Here for your heart. Visit DignityHealth.org/ central-california or call 844-801-7321 to learn how our cath lab services could be helpful to you. An inside job Treating heart problems without surgery, close to home If your doctor thinks your heart isn’t getting enough vital circulation, he or she might want you to have a test and possibly a procedure done in the Dignity Health – Mercy Medical Center cardiac catheterization lab. Raj Gurai, supervisor of the cath lab, explains what happens in the lab and how experts there can help you or your family member if you have a heart or other circulation problem. Q: What is a cardiac cath lab? It’s a special area in our hospital where we use imaging tests to mainly examine arteries around the heart for blockages and narrowing that prevent enough blood from getting through. Q: How are procedures performed? Flexible wires called catheters are put into an artery through a small opening in the wrist or the groin. It’s kind of like starting an IV. The catheter is moved through the artery all the way to the heart. Then a procedure—a test or a treatment—can be done. Q: What treatments are performed in the cath lab? One of the main treatments we offer is elective angioplasty, also known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). We started doing that last year. With this procedure, doctors (called interventional cardiologists) use a catheter to open a narrowed heart artery. They can then place a device called a stent in the artery to help keep it open. Angioplasty can help ease the symptoms of heart disease, such as chest pain. One of the benefits of us now doing elective angioplasty at Mercy Medical Center is that our patients don’t have to leave Merced to have the procedure. Before, we were able to diagnose a blockage in an artery in our cath lab, but we couldn’t treat it. If we found a blockage, the patient had to be transferred to another facility—up to an hour away—to have the artery opened. Now you can have everything done right here. It’s much more convenient for both patients and their families. Q: What are some other procedures available in the cath lab? We also diagnose and treat peripheral vascular disease—blocked arteries in the legs. We install implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and pacemakers, which treat irregular heartbeats.