Advancements in Cardiac Care

Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital offers the widest range of the latest options to help diagnose and treat heart disease and other cardiovascular conditions. New advances are occurring every day, enabling us to determine the condition of your heart quicker and more accurately than ever before. Whether you feel chest pain, discomfort or know you are experiencing a heart attack, our clinical staff is dedicated to keeping you and your primary care doctor well informed throughout every step of your care.

Cardiovascular Diagnostics
With two cardiac catheterization laboratories, Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital is one of the busiest and most advanced cardiac cath labs in the midwest. Cardiologists and staff perform more than 3,000 diagnostic procedures on patients each year to determine the extent of disease present in the vascular system, and to improve obstructed arteries. Procedures include:

• diagnostic catheterizations
• angiographies
• balloon angioplasty
• atherectomy
• coronary stent placement

Electrophysiology Laboratory (EP Lab)
For patients suffering from irregular heartbeats (arrhythmia) or fast heartbeats (tachyarrhythmia), Good Samaritan Hospital's experts in electrophysiology can pinpoint strands of heart muscle causing electrical "short circuits." The EP Lab is the area's only dedicated laboratory exclusively designed and used for this type of diagnosis and treatment.

Good Samaritan was one of the first hospitals to treat patients suffering from life threatening heart rhythms with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The high-tech device helps patients who could be at risk for sudden cardiac death by detecting and correcting an abnormal heart rhythm within seconds by administering pacing therapy or an electrical shock to the heart.

Cardiovascular H.A.R.T.
The Cardiovascular Heart Assessment Recovery and Treatment Unit (H.A.R.T.) brings cardiac outpatient therapy and same day cardiac procedures together in one central location-making it more efficient and convenient for patients to receive quality care. The H.A.R.T. unit is designed for short-stay patients who have had various cardiac-related outpatient procedures.

• Electrocardiography (EKG))
• Holter monitoring (24 hour EKG)
• Stress testing
• Thallium stress testing
• Drug therapy
• Echocardiography (echo)