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As Maury Regional Hospital surveys its eight-county service area, something is missing, and the facility is making moves to get to the heart of the matter.
The county-owned hospital is seeking approval from the Tennessee Health Services Agency to offer openheart surgery. An application for a certificate of need to offer those services will go before the agency in November.
The hospital has a coronary care unit, offers heart diagnostic services and operates a cardiac catheritization laboratory, but the absence of open heart surgery is limiting the growth the hospital could experience, say hospital officials.
"The unavailability of open heart surgery and coronary angioplasty has greatly restricted the growth of this cardiac program because all (of our) patients requiring these two services must be transferred or referred to Nashville hospitals," according to the hospital's certificate of need application. "Many patients who only appear to be candidates for open heart or coronary angioplasty are often referred to Nashville for their diagnostic work (as well)."
The hospital had net operating revenues of about $9.3 million in...