HEALTH COMMISSIONER APPROVES TRINITAS HOSPITAL TO PARTICIPATE IN ELECTIVE ANGIOPLASTY STUDY
Dr. Fred Jacobs, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services, has given final approval to Trinitas Hospital’s application to participate in a study to determine the effectiveness of elective angioplasty procedures.

Trinitas and eight other New Jersey Hospitals received approval to participate in a multi-state demonstration project that will assess the safety, quality and cost of elective angioplasty in hospitals that offer emergency angioplasty without onsite cardiac surgery backup. The three-year study, known as the Atlantic C-PORT Trial, also includes hospitals in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Alabama and Georgia and will involve up to 16,000 patients.

“This key approval means that life-saving elective angioplasty services will now be readily available for the 300,000 people who reside in Trinitas Hospital’s service area,” explained Gary S. Horan FACHE, Trinitas President and Chief Executive Officer. Trinitas has performed angioplasties since 2003, but only on emergency patients experiencing active heart attack symptoms.

“We are very proud to be selected to participate in this important study. In terms of quality, volume and patient diversity, Trinitas met all the conditions deemed important by the Commissioner and the members of the State Health Planning Board," he added. The State Health Planning Board approved Trinitas’ application in early October.

“Our angioplasty team has demonstrated time and again that it can successfully perform angioplasties in difficult emergency situations. This certainly indicates that we are up to the task of performing angioplasties on an elective basis,” Mr. Horan stated.

Coronary angioplasty involves the insertion of a catheter into a blocked artery in the heart. A small balloon on the end of the catheter is inflated, opening the artery and restoring blood flow to the heart.

"On the issue of quality, Trinitas Hospital's cardiac program, both in terms of diagnostic cardiac catheterization and emergency angioplasty, is excellent," Mr. Horan explained, noting that between January 2004 and September 2005, Trinitas performed 1,072 diagnostic catheterizations with zero mortality. During the same period, Trinitas performed 81 emergency angioplasty procedures with a mortality rate that was half the national mortality average.

Trinitas is expected to begin providing elective angioplasty procedures in the first quarter of 2006.

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Posted: November 10, 2005

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