A new cardiac lab is providing the advanced technology and additional space needed to elevate Northwell Health’s cardiovascular care and meet the growing demand at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
“The importance of updating these labs for us is to meet the needs of our growing population,” said Alexander Lee, the hospital’s director of cardiac catheterization labs. “LIJ is really a major hub in treating patients. Keeping up to date with our technologies, having additional labs to meet the volume of patients that come through our labs is critical.”
Lee said the demand for cardiac procedures that the lab is equipped for, including minor surgeries like stent, pacemaker and defibrillator implants, cardiac catheterization, advanced imaging and rhythm disorder treatments, has increased by 30% over the past year.
“That’s a tremendous increase over the last year, and it’s been a steady increase for the last few years now,” Lee said. “This is really just keeping up with our population and ensuring we’re offering the latest and greatest to our patients.”
Some of the most notable developments in the new lab include new imaging technology that results in significantly less radiation for patients and doctors, additional space, which will decrease wait times for procedures and advanced imaging equipment that allows doctors to get a clearer view when carrying out stent operations.
“Compared to old systems, this equipment results in five to seven times less radiation when doing the same amount of work. That’s important to keep up with, because less radiation is better for the patients,” Lee said. “And, having that extra space on any given day…means we are able to get to more patients sooner…which results in a shorter length of stay for them.”
The lab is shared by both the cardiac and electrophysiology teams, providing both with that critical extra space, which Lee said will allow both departments to provide care faster for people coming in for outpatient, inpatient and emergency care.
“If we have a limited number of rooms, then we can only have so many operators working at any moment in time,” Lee said. “Having that additional room provides an extra outlet of space to use to do the procedures and allows additional operators to do the work.”
“The growth in our coronary space as well as our electrophysiology space has been tremendous,” Lee continued. “To meet that need, we need the space and labs to accommodate it.”
Long Island Jewish Medical Center is located at 270-5 76th Ave. in New Hyde Park.
