Eastern Health - Cardiac and Critical Care

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Cardiac and Critical Care

The Cardiac and Critical Care Program offers a range of services to support the diagnosis and management of heart disease and critical illness.

The program has a number of specialized units dedicated to caring for people with serious or acute heart problems across the Eastern region and in major hospitals and care centres.

Our services include:

Inpatient units and critical care units

The program has a series of inpatient cardiac and critical care units located at the Health Sciences, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre, Carbonear General Hospital and Dr. G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital.

Cardiac surgery

The Health Sciences Centre is the tertiary centre for cardiac (heart) surgery in Newfoundland Labrador, performing hundreds of cardiac surgeries in St. John’s each year. Surgeries include coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), heart valve surgery and Bentall procedures.

Cardiac catheterization laboratory

The cardiac catheterization laboratory (cath lab), located on the main floor of the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s, is a provincial service for invasive cardiac testing and procedures. There is an emergency on-call team available 24 hours per day, seven days a week. For more information, please call 709-777-7769 or fax: 709-777-6140.

Cardiac diagnostics

Cardiac diagnostics include electrocardiogram (EKG), Holter monitoring and stress testing. These services are offered at the Health Sciences, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre, Carbonear General Hospital and Dr. G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital.

Echocardiography

An echocardiogram (echo) is a test that uses sounds waves to take pictures of your heart as it beats. It can help your doctor diagnose problems with your heart valves and with the pumping action of your heart muscle. This service is offered at the Health Sciences, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre, Carbonear General Hospital and Dr. G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital.

Cardiac clinics

The program as a series of specialized clinics for heart failure, cardiac devices and cardiac genetics clinics. These are located at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's.

Cardiac rehabilitation

Cardiac rehabilitation is an outpatient program consisting of exercise, education and support that helps people recover from heart attacks, heart surgery and heart related procedures.

Process Improvements in the Cardiac Cath Lab

Recent process improvements at the cardiac cath lab have led to dramatic reductions in wait times for cardiac patients awaiting catheterization across Newfoundland and Labrador.

The following are the average number of inpatient wait days (from date of acceptance to date of procedure) for the province’s four regional health authorities in January 2019, compared with fiscal year 2017–18 (April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018):

Eastern Health: down 51 per cent (1.95 days in January 2019 from 4 days in 2017–18)
Central Health: down 59 per cent (3.27 days in January 2019 from 8 days in 2017–18)
Western Health: down 72 per cent (2.8 days in January 2019 from 10 days in 2017–18)
Labrador-Grenfell Health: down 44 per cent (6.2 days in January 2019 from 11 days in 2017–18)

Updated Jun 5, 2019

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