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Hospital shows off heart center

Beginning next month, heart patients can have surgery locally, at the Heart Institute at Oak Hill Hospital.

By LOGAN NEILL
Published December 17, 2005

	[Times photo: Edmund Fountain]
	Oak Hill Hospital perfusionist Ron Gulic demonstrates the heart-lung machine Thursday. The machine takes over for the patient's heart and lungs during open-heart surgery, allowing surgeons to operate on a still heart.
	Mannequins take the place of patients for a news media tour of the new Heart Institute at Oak Hill Hospital, which is expected to open in January.

SPRING HILL - Up till now, Hernando County residents who were unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with cardiac disease in need of a surgical fix had to go elsewhere for treatment.

But come January, the need to travel for heart valve surgery, heart bypass surgery and angioplasty procedures will become a thing of the past when the Heart Institute at Oak Hill Hospital comes online.

On Thursday evening, hospital administrators previewed the hospital's $8.5-million state-of-the-art cardiac diagnostic and treatment unit for members of the news media. The 24,000-square-foot facility - which includes a catheterization lab, a surgical suite and a post-operative intensive care unit with 10 rooms - represents the hospital's long-anticipated hope of answering a critical medical need in the area.

It is heralded as a milestone for the fast-growing county.

"It's a huge step forward because it will bring a high-quality care that people have previously had to go elsewhere to find," said Eileen Berkowitz, the hospital's director of surgical and cardiovascular services. "It puts our community on par with every major region in the state."

In addition to open-heart surgery, the facility will enable cardiologists to perform a number of procedures, such as coronary stents and angioplasties, which previously were off-limits because of the lack of emergency cardiac surgical facilities.

"Being able to keep them here will have a huge impact to patients and their family members because they won't have to travel or be away from home," Berkowitz said. "It will make recovery and rehabilitation a lot easier for them."

The opening of the heart center marks the end of a long and sometimes bitter battle between Oak Hill and rivals Brooksville Regional and Spring Hill Regional hospitals as to which one would be the first to offer open-heart surgery in Hernando County.

After being turned down twice by state hospital regulators, Oak Hill Hospital finally won permission to build its open-heart unit in 2001. However, Oak Hill soon found itself locking horns with Brooksville Regional over its plans to build a new hospital on State Road 50 west of Brooksville. Administrators at Oak Hill, owned by HCA-The Healthcare Co. of Nashville, contended that the move closer to Spring Hill would cut into its service area. In turn, Brooksville Regional sought to block Oak Hill's long-awaited expansion plans.

Eventually, both hospitals agreed to allow each other's plans to go forward, leaving Oak Hill the ability to prepare for the heart center's groundbreaking, which took place early this year. From all indications, the addition of the open-heart program is likely to be a financial winner for the hospital.

Oak Hill marketing director Richard Linkul said the facility's seven cardiovascular surgeons are projected to perform between 150 and 175 open-heart surgeries in the first year of operation. Additionally, the unit is expecting a 44 percent increase in the number of catheterizations performed at the hospital.

Spring Hill cardiologist Dr. Mowaffak Atfeh thinks that having a full-service cardiac facility will greatly strengthen the county's health care outlook as it continues to grow.

"It will bring a certain peace of mind to people, especially our elderly population, knowing that it is here," Atfeh said. "It will help save some lives that couldn't be saved before."

Logan Neill can be reached at lneill@sptimes.com or 352 848-1435.

[Last modified December 17, 2005, 01:01:18]