How important is it to you and your loved ones?
Any serious elective medical procedure involves risk, even a relatively common procedure like elective angioplasty.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found patients are 38% more likely to die if angioplasty complications occur at a hospital without on-site cardiac surgical backup.
That is why the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions ALL advise against performing elective angioplasty without on-site cardiac surgery backup. So, if patient safety is so important, why would New Jersey participate in an experiment to allow elective angioplasty in a hospital without on-site cardiac surgery backup?
In New Jersey, people needing elective angioplasty are only a short drive from one of 18 hospitals properly licensed to perform elective angioplasty because they have cardiac surgery backup.
The New Jersey Supreme Court cited “concerns both for the process and for patient well-being” when it ruled that the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services broke its own rules by permitting this experiment. But it is not over. New Jersey’s Health Care Administration Board will soon consider loosening New Jersey’s patient safety regulations to allow this experiment to continue.
Call the Board at 609-292-9382, or e-mail the administrator, alise.davis@doh.state.nj.us.
Ask them to consider patient safety first.