Augusta Health fills gap in health-care coverage
Story by Chris Graham
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Time is of the essence in treating cardiac emergencies.
“Once a patient comes in the door, you want to have them in the cath lab and be working toward correcting the situation within 90 minutes,” said Mary Mannix, the CEO at Augusta Health, which is undertaking an effort to be able to deliver interventional cardiac catheterization services 24-7 on its Fishersville campus.
The effort includes an ambitious $42 million project to build a new Heart and Cancer Center that is in the design phase right now, but it’s not all about bricks-and-mortar. The hospital has hired added cardiology specialists to the staff and is basically already offering high-level heart and vascular care on a 24-7 basis.
“The phrase in the health-care industry is, Time is muscle. If time is too great, you really lose the opportunity to intervene in the most efficacious way,” Mannix said. “The objective is to reduce the amount of time from when a patient presents a problem in the emergency room to when treatment can begin in the cath lab.”
The push came as the result of an ongoing review of the health-care needs of the Greater Augusta region that exposed a gap in delivery in the heart and vascular area. Patients in need of interventional care would have to be sent to the University of Virginia Medical Center for that care, adding a worrisome delay to the process of treating individual patients.
“And that’s not even considering our geography. If you live on the eastern side of Waynesboro, you might be able to get to Charlottesville and not have a problem. But Augusta County is over 900 square miles, and we also serve Highland and Bath. And when you’re talking about those areas, you’re talking about great distances and very rural roads,” said Kathleen Heatwole, the vice president for planning and development at Augusta Health.
The first phase of the effort to beef up service delivery came with the addition of the staff dedicated to the heart and vascular specialty. The next phases involve the development of the building infrastructure that will come to fruition over the next two to three years. Heatwole said ground could be broken on the addition to the hospital as early as this fall, with completion of construction possible in late 2011 or early 2012.
“The new space will allow all of our services to be consolidated into one area that is very accessible to our patients, has great access to parking, offers the ability to drop off and pick up in close proximity to where services will be received. Physicians’ offices can all be colocated there. Testing can be done there as well. And when the patient goes in for a procedure, they’ll be able to do it right there in that section of the building,” Mannix said.
“We’re excited to be able to offer this to the community. To this point in time, we’ve not been able to offer this level of service to the community. But it’s something that is very much needed,” Mannix said.
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