CHS Launches St. Francis Heart Center at Mercy Medical Center

The Island Now

Catholic Health Services is expanding its award-winning St. Francis Heart Center cardiovascular program with new interventional services at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre.

Led by a team of world-renowned interventional cardiologists from St. Francis Hospital, this Center at Mercy gives residents along Nassau County’s south shore access to lifesaving procedures such as percutaneous coronary intervention. This procedure uses a catheter to place a stent to open the heart’s blood vessels that have been narrowed by plaque buildup.

St. Francis Heart Center at Mercy hospital will also enhance the existing diagnostic catheterization program, offering immediate cardiac care to patients who present at the hospital with a heart attack or other significant cardiac issue.

St. Francis Heart Center doctors will have the ability to perform an intervention to open the artery through stenting when disease is discovered during a diagnostic catheterization. The capability to restore blood flow and save the heart muscle for patients within 90 minutes is critical.

“Launching St. Francis Heart Center at Mercy expands access to our renowned cardiac care that consists of top-ranked physicians and medical teams,” said St. Francis Hospital President Charles L. Lucore. “As the only hospital on Long Island to have a 5-Star CMS rating and the only one to be designated in the New York Metro area as a Top General Hospital by The Leapfrog Group, expanding our nationally ranked cardiac programs further enhances our vision of providing exceptional patient care, in the communities we serve.”

The St. Francis Heart Center at Mercy team will be backed by the St. Francis Hospital cardiothoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists, perfusionists and others who have expertise in all types of heart surgery. This includes coronary artery bypass surgery to the newest, minimally invasive valve procedures, including surgical techniques designed to treat certain cardiac arrhythmias, or irregular heart rhythms.

“Timely diagnosis and treatment of patients experiencing heart problems is vital to successful outcomes,” said CHS and St. Francis Hospital Chairman of Cardiology Richard Shlofmitz. “St. Francis Heart Center at Mercy puts the quality of St. Francis Hospital closer to home for a large number of residents who will now have quick and easy access to exceptional cardiac care that will save lives.”

St. Francis Hospital is recognized as one of the top hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report (2020–21), currently ranked nationally in four adult specialties: Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Geriatrics and Pulmonology & Lung Surgery.

The St. Francis nursing staff, who are leading the training and expansion of the program at Mercy, have earned the prestigious Magnet® designation for excellence in nursing care, an honor awarded three consecutive times. Only about 8 percent of hospitals in the U.S. meet the high standards of Magnet, which is achieved through a rigorous evaluation that includes extensive interviews and review of nursing services, clinical outcomes, and patient care and satisfaction.

The expanded St. Francis Heart Center cardiac services at Mercy joins St. Francis Heart Center at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip. St. Francis Heart Center will be further expanded to offer cardiac services at St. Joseph Hospital in Bethpage in 2021, with the opening of a new cardiac catheterization lab.

More information on the cardiology services offered at CHS may be obtained by visiting CHSLI.org/cardiac-care or call 888-HEART-NY.

 

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