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Five of the nation's top heart hospitals have gone on record to acknowledge how Heartlab's Encompass(TM) Cardiac Network is helping them to meet the image and information management needs of their cardiac catheterization labs. These hospitals are as follows:
-- St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, TX
-- Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC
-- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA
-- Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI
-- Pitt County Memorial Hospital, Greenville, NC
Clinicians at these facilities have cited as significant advantages the Encompass system's capacity for handling the networking demands of flat panel technology, its ability to provide fast and easy remote access to cardiac images, and its capabilities for long-term digital image storage and retrieval. These advantages have led to operational efficiencies as well as enhanced patient care and teaching capabilities.
"When we transitioned to flat panel technology in the cath lab, we demanded a network to support it," said David Fish, MD, FACC, director of interventional cardiology research and education at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, which U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks as one of the nation's top ten heart centers. "After all, if you're going to make the capital investment to lay the pipe, you have to be able to carry the water. Heartlab delivered." St. Luke's installed the Heartlab system in 2001; the facility has what is arguably the world's largest and busiest cardiac catheterization lab, performing more than 18,000 procedures annually.
Efthymios Deliargyris, MD, director of the intravascular ultrasound laboratory and assistant professor of medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, also cites Heartlab's ability to handle the networking demands of flat panel technology as an operational plus. Wake Forest installed its Encompass system earlier this year; its five cath labs perform more than 4,000 cases a year.
"We were one of the first...