Using the same MRI diagnostics performed in iHeart Imaging Centers, our Care Centers also provide comprehensive outpatient treatment options. iHeart Care Center treatments include catheterizations for both cardiac and vascular disease.
Systemic Disease: Systemic Treatment, Better Results
Traditionally, cardiac and vascular disease are treated in piecemeal fashion, in facilities which are inherently inefficient and limit physicians’ access to patient information.
But cardiovascular disease does not occur in a piecemeal fashion. Since the disease processes affect a closed system, cardiac and vascular diseases act systemically, not locally. When atherosclerotic disease occurs in one portion of the circulatory system, the entire system is affected. Effects of cardiac or vascular disease occur not just locally but throughout the system.
Diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of the disease at a systemic level offer improved outcomes in the fight to extend and improve quality of life for patients suffering from cardiovascular disease.
The Rise of Outpatient Centers
The rise of minimally invasive surgical procedures produced a concurrent rise in outpatient procedures and facilities. There is no clinical reason for most minimally invasive interventions to be performed in an inpatient setting—so they moved to outpatient facilities. The outpatient wave is big, and still getting bigger, with over 5,316 surgical centers for general surgery operating in 2010. The number of Medicare-certified surgical centers grew by an average of 6.7 percent each year from 2002 through 2007, and 2.1% from 2008 to 2009.[2]
Technology has also changed the paradigm within which cardiovascular disease is treated. Since the early 2000s, highly invasive cardiac surgeries are increasingly replaced by minimally invasive, catheter-based procedures.[1] These catheter-based procedures have transformed the day to day practice of cardiology, vascular surgery, and nephrology, with improved patient outcomes.
However, while delivery of minimally invasive outpatient surgery has matured for general surgery, the winning model for cardiovascular outpatient procedures has not yet been defined. Cath labs, access labs, ASCs, and IDTF’s (Independent Diagnostic Testing Facilities) each serve independent segments of the cardiovascular outpatient market.
Bringing focus on the entire cardiovascular system into each of our locations, iHeart is the new standard for outpatient diagnosis and treatment of cardiac and vascular disease.
To learn more about iHeart Care Centers, please contact our corporate office.
[1] Changes in health care reimbursement policy, advances in medical technology, and advances in pain management have made it possible to shift many medical procedures from the inpatient departments of general hospitals to ambulatory settings and specialty focused providers (Choudhry, Choudhry, & Brennan, 2005; Winter, 2003; Russo et al., 2007).
[2] Source: Medpac.gov