ARMC’s cardiac services team is dedicated to caring for you and your
family. Our care teams are health care professionals involving nurses,
dietitians, primary doctors, social workers, case managers, technical
staff, and more who work together to give high-quality and coordinated
care. The team is here to meet your needs for routine care, testing, and
hospitalization.
What is heart disease? The term “heart disease” refers to several types of heart conditions.
The most common type of heart disease in the United States is coronary
artery disease (CAD), which affects the blood flow to the heart. Decreased
blood flow can cause a heart attack.
What are the symptoms of heart disease? Sometimes heart disease may be “silent” and not diagnosed until
a person experiences signs or symptoms of a heart attack, heart failure,
or an arrhythmia. When these events happen, symptoms may include:
Heart Attack: Chest pain or discomfort, upper back or neck pain, indigestion, heartburn,
nausea or vomiting, extreme fatigue, upper body discomfort, dizziness,
and shortness of breath.
Arrhythmia: Fluttering feelings in the chest (palpitations).
Heart Failure: Shortness of breath, fatigue, or swelling of the feet, ankles, legs, abdomen,
or neck veins.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2023
Your Allies in Heart and Vascular Health
When you choose ARMC for cardiac services, you have access to experienced
professionals and innovative care for a wide range of heart and vascular
conditions.
Cardiac Clinic ARMC’s outpatient cardiac clinic offers a variety of services. These
include initial consultations, preoperative planning, post-operative care,
medical management for chronic conditions, monitoring of implanted pacemakers
and implantable cardioverterdefibrillator (ICD) devices, and prevention
of disease. Educating patients and their caregivers is avital function
of clinic services.
As a benefit to our cardiac patients, ARMC has a dedicated cardiac care
manager to support and assist patients and their families with meeting
their needs. This is included in the outpatient cardiac clinic program.
Cardiac Diagnostic Testing Services
As an outpatient or inpatient, cardiac testing services are available to
all ARMC cardiac patients. This includes EKGs, exercise cardiac stress
testing, thallium scans, ultrasound of the heart and blood vessels, cardiac
cardiothoracic and several others. This ensures that you and your doctor
have the needed information to make decisions.
Cardiac diagnostic services include:
Cardiac catheterization
Cardiac pacemakers
Cardiac rehabilitation
Cardiac stress testing
Electrocardiography
Holter monitoring
Transesophageal echocardiography
Transthoracic echocardiography
Our cardiac team includes a medical director, nurse manager, specially-trained
cardiology nurses, a respiratory care practitioner, and a sonographer
technician.
Cardiac Catheterization Lab for Angiography A cardiac catheterization (cath) provides information on how well your
heart works, identifies problems, and allows for procedures such as angioplasty
and stenting to open blocked arteries. During a cardiac cath, your health
care team may take X-rays using contrast dye injected through the catheter
to look for narrowed or blocked coronary arteries. This is called coronary
angiography or coronary arteriography.
An interventional cardiologist performs a percutaneous coronary intervention
(PCI) such as coronary angioplasty with stenting to open narrowed or blocked
segments of a coronary artery. ARMC is currently expanding the number
of cath lab facilities.
Cardiothoracic Surgery Cardiothoracic surgery is a general term that includes surgical procedures
performed on the chest (thorax), including the heart, lungs, esophagus
and more. A cardiothoracic surgeon takes on two specialties at once –
cardiac surgery (heart surgery) and thoracic surgery (surgery on chest
organs). Common types of procedures are replacements of the heart valves
and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
ARMC has invested in surgery suite and staff training to meet patient needs.
Our surgeons are specially trained in surgical correction of heart and
chest diseases.
Nursing Units Specialize in Heart Care
Patients sometimes need to stay in the hospital for monitoring or recovery.
ARMC has two inpatient units dedicated to this care. The Cardiovascular
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is set up to meet the needs of our critical
cardiac patients. The unit has specialized equipment and trained nurses
to meet the needs of patients.
When patients are well enough to not need ICU services, they may still
require ongoing hospital care. ARMC has a 24-bed cardiac telemetry unit
to meet the needs of these patients until discharge. ARMC’s nursing
staff care for patients at all stages of hospitalization.
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