CGH’s second cardiac cath lab opens with area’s most sophisticated technology

Dec. 5, 2005 — Physicians at Chesapeake General Hospital treating patients with heart and vascular diseases now have access to the most advanced imaging equipment in Hampton Roads.

In early December, the hospital opened its second cardiac catheterization lab, a state-of-the-art facility equipped with Philips’ digital flat-plane cardiac–vascular X-ray system. The sophisticated system provides a distortion free, high-resolution, 3-Dl image of the heart’s coronary arteries, a key advance over the grainy images currently available in most hospitals’ technology.

“It’s like looking right into the heart,” said Sherwood Moore, the lab’s manager. “With this new equipment, we’re on the pioneering edge of invasive cardiac imaging and hemodynamics.”

In addition to the Philips cardiac–vascular X-ray system, CGH’s second cardiac cath lab has a state-of-the-art archival system that is not available at any other healthcare facility locally. With it, cardiologists will be able to compare such images as angiograms and echocardiograms side-by-side.

The lab offers expanded services to cardiologists, interventional radiologists and vascular surgeons and significantly increases the number of patients cared for at the lab.

The last phase of CGH’s new lab project, the implementation of the American College of Cardiology database registry, will begin Jan. 1.