Be Heart Smart

Expanded Services at the Heart and Vascular Center

Manatee Memorial Hospital wants to help you achieve your heart's desires, and to do that, you need a healthy heart. Our Heart and Vascular Center provides comprehensive diagnostic services and treatment for cardiac and circulatory issues.

Convenient, Expanded Services

The 17,000-square-foot facility, located on the ground floor of the Patient Tower, includes the following:

• Four cardiac catheterization labs
• Accredited Chest Pain Center
• Nuclear medicine labs
• 12-bed pretreatment and posttreatment areas
• Conference room

Thirty physicians, including cardiologists, radiologists, vascular surgeons and cardiothoracic surgeons, have made the facility their home base, and more are on the way. A multidisciplinary support team comprises nearly 40 nurses, technicians and ancillary staff.

"Manatee Memorial has always offered advanced cardiac care, but the new Center allows us to provide these services in a convenient central location," says Paula Jefferson, RN, Director of the Center.

Jefferson says that the physicians and staff are delighted with the new facility because they can work more efficiently, without sending patients to different areas of the hospital for procedures and tests. It's also easier to consult with and share new techniques with colleagues. For example, the videoconferencing capability in the cardiac catheterization labs allows physicians to view procedures in real time from the conference room.

Patients are pleased, as well. "Many patients who come here for the first time exclaim how beautiful the Center is," Jefferson says. "The spacious layout and décor makes it look more like a hotel than a hospital, and puts patients at ease."

Advanced Technology

"Manatee Memorial strives to offer physicians advanced equipment," says cardiologist Alberto Montalvo, MD. He has a unique long-term perspective, having been with the hospital for 27 years. Dr. Montalvo helped develop the hospital's first cardiac catheterization lab.

The current operating room equipment and implantable devices have facilitated the evolution of cardiac care, Dr. Montalvo says. "We're able to see the details of the heart and circulatory system with more clarity and maneuver around the heart more easily. Our procedures are more precise and less invasive," he says.

"We've progressed from basic cardiac angioplasty [unblocking coronary arteries] to using stents to widen and repair blood vessels," Dr. Montalvo adds. "We can place these stents not just in the heart, but also in the legs, kidneys, neck and throughout the body.

"The electrical aspect of cardiology has progressed too," he says. "We've gone from using simple pacemakers to regulate the heartbeat to performing advanced diagnosis and treatment of many heart rhythm disorders, including atrial fibrillation."

Nationally Recognized Surgeons

Many physicians at the Center are national leaders in their fields. Cardiothoracic surgeon Alessandro Golino, MD, specializes in a delicate procedure that involves repairing the mitral valve to create a tighter seal but still allow blood flow. The mitral valve, located between the upper- and lower-left chambers of the heart, may cease closing all the way, allowing a small amount of blood to leak backward into the upper-left chamber. Known as mitral valve regurgitation, this condition can cause shortness of breath, fatigue or palpitations, because the heart is less able to move oxygenated blood throughout the body.

"Repairing the valve is more complex than replacing it with an artificial one, but it's much better for the patient," Dr. Golino says. "Our surgical outcomes are among the best in the country -- we even have patients travel from many miles away to have this procedure done here."

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Advanced Diagnostics

Advanced imaging technologies, such as three-dimensional echocardiography, help make complex heart surgeries possible by showing physicians a real-time "movie" of the heart. "With 3-D echo, we can see exactly how the heart valves are functioning, determine which parts of the heart wall might have been damaged by a heart attack, examine congenital heart defects and, in general, view the heart's structure and function more clearly than we previously could," says Eugene Parent, MD, Director of the Echocardiology Laboratory at the Center.

The 3-D images also allow surgeons to plan procedures, such as mitral valve repair, with greater precision. "In the past, surgeons would examine two-dimensional images and not know exactly what they were going to find during the procedure," Dr. Parent says. "These images make it much easier to get a full understanding of the valve and how to approach the surgery." This contributes to a smoother procedure and better results.

Dr. Parent, who completed his advanced echocardiography training at Yale University and has directed the echocardiology lab for nine years, says that Manatee Memorial is one of the only hospitals in the region to offer 3-D echo technology.

Special Receiving Center for Rapid Treatment

The Heart and Vascular Center is the new home for the ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) Receiving Center. It provides rapid treatment to open clogged cardiac arteries. STEMI is the medical term for a type of heart attack.

Patients can be transferred directly to the catheterization lab, where medical team members use sophisticated imaging and surgical techniques to pinpoint the clogged vessel, remove the blockage and restore blood flow. The goal is to open the vessel within 90 minutes from the time the patient enters the hospital. "Many people have heard the phrase 'time is muscle,' but it bears repeating," Jefferson says. "The faster we restore blood flow throughout the heart, the better the chances for a full recovery."

Heart trouble may first appear as minor, intermittent chest pain, and the patient may wait too long to seek treatment. At the Center, team members can diagnose subtle but suspicious symptoms and provide treatment in critical early stages, when intervention is most effective. The Heart and Vascular Center is an accredited Chest Pain Center, meaning that the facility meets national quality-of-care guidelines established by the Society of Chest Pain Centers and has gone through a rigorous review and survey process.

Put Your Heart in Our Hands

Comprehensive Services

The following procedures are offered at the Heart and Vascular Center:

Diagnostic

• Echocardiography
• 2-D and 3-D echocardiography
• 2-D and 3-D transesophageal echocardiography (TEE)
• Stress echocardiography

Nuclear Medicine

• Stress testing
• Perfusion test
• Viability test

Cardiac

• Cardiac catheterization
• Angioplasty
• Stenting
• Atherectomy
• Laser therapy
• Valvoplasty
• Thrombectomy and thrombolysis therapy
• Intracoronary ultrasound
• Stress testing

Electrophysiology Diagnostic and Interventional

• Radio-frequency ablations
• Implantables
• Pacemakers
• Loop recorders
• Defibrillators
• Heart failure devices
• Tilt table testing
• Intracardiac ultrasound

Peripheral Vascular Diagnostic and Interventional

• Angioplasty
• Atherectomy
• Limb salvage
• Stenting
• Cryotherapy
• Laser therapy
• Thrombectomy and thrombolysis therapy
• Peripheral vascular ultrasound
• Dialysis graft repair Cardiac Surgical
• Coronary bypass surgery
• Minimally invasive surgery
• Mitral valve repair and replacement
• Aortic valve replacement
• Endoscopic vein harvesting

206 Second Street East,
Bradenton, FL 34208
941-746-5111 FAX: 941-745-6862