Self Regional Healthcare’s Heart and Vascular Center provides a broad range of advanced heart care, ranging from preventative and emergency cardiac care to open heart surgery and rehabilitation. We utilize the latest diagnostic and therapeutic methods available.
In 2022, we achieved Platinum Status in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry’s Chest Pain—MI Registry for our outstanding performance metrics in the care of patients with NSTEMI or STEMI. This distinction means that we consistently met and exceeded national standards for rapidly diagnosing and treating heart attack patients during the previous calendar year.
Our nationally accredited Chest Pain Center ensures our team of emergency physicians, cardiologists, hospitalists, critical care nurses, paramedics, and cardiac catheterization lab provide the highest standard of care to every patient that presents to our facility with chest pain. The Chest Pain Center also annually provides education and training to various community organizations, from schools and local businesses to retirement communities and local 911 operators.
Transcript
Well, honestly, I didn't realize it was a heart attack. I just felt like I was about to faint. I felt faint, you know. I told my son, and he said, "Well, he felt like we needed to call EMS," which we did. Once we got to the ER, everything just went like clockwork. Time is muscle. Speed is critical. You have to have an EKG within the first 10 minutes. Door to balloon, 90 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes. My name is Jo Holley and I live in Greenwood and I work at Lakeview Elementary with kindergarten. I have one son. I'm divorced. I've lived in Greenwood most of my life. I came when I lived at County Maxwell before I started, you know, before I got married. So Greenwood's more like my hometown. When EMS is activated for someone who's potentially having a heart attack, they'll come to the house with lights and sirens on. The concern is that you are having a heart attack. The first thing they do when they get to your home is they're going to do a full assessment. They're going to ask you some history, what's hurting. If you're telling them you have chest pain, they're going to start down a specific guideline chest pain protocol. Part of that protocol is going to be to do an EKG. The really cool thing about getting an EKG done in this manner is that as soon as the medic sees you, and sees that EKG, they are all trained to recognize a heart attack on an EKG tracy. I do remember a lot of it. They would ask you questions, you know, about how I felt, how old I was, my birthday. Like I said, they were very helpful, you know, because I think they were taking an EKG and they were sending everything, I think, to the emergency room. And like I said, I am indebted to them mostly because they were so quick and fast in everything that they did, you know, they were very efficient. They immediately call us in the ER, let us know that we have a patient in the field who's having a heart attack. That allows us to go ahead and start the process. We can go ahead and activate the cath lab, they're on the way in. We call the cardiologist, they're on the way in. What this does is it speeds the process to get you seen quicker, which is what our goal is to get you to the cath lab as quick as we can to get the artery open back up in your heart. It was just like one, two, three, and you were in and out. There was no delay, there was no hesitant, I mean, everybody knew exactly what to do and when to do it. The foundation was great when they helped us to purchase the CarePoint system that we're using currently in our emergency department. The CarePoint system is a way that EMS can safely and securely transmit an EKG to the emergency department for the emergency department physician to read the EKG real live before the patient arrives here. So, when you have that EKG done at your house, the EMS folks can immediately send us the EKG in the ER and you have a physician reading your EKG and we can make some decisions on the point right then. Another great initiative that our hospital is currently doing is that we are helping provide AEDs to our communities. An AED is an automatic external defibrillator that is used by the general public and serves as a first responder for those people who are having a cardiac event out in the community. For the last two years, our hospital has been providing them to select areas where there are high volumes or potential volumes of people that could be having a heart attack. AEDs are fantastic in that if someone is having a heart attack to the point to where their heart stops, an AED can be life-saving. They're self-explanatory on how to use, even for a layperson. It will walk you through the process of how to apply the AED and when to shock somebody and when not to shock somebody. Just by pushing the button, the machine tells you what to do. So, it's a great service to our community and AEDs do save lives. Once the cath lab team arrives, after they've been called in, they will call the emergency care center and tell them that they're ready for the patient. The emergency care center nurse and one other person will transport that patient to the cath lab on a monitor, and once they arrive in the cath lab, then the table, our table is set up and we're ready for the patient. We prep the patient, put the patient on the table, the physician is already here. So, we're ready to start once that patient arrives here. I would have assessed the patient in the emergency room and from the EKG, already have an idea where the blockage is going to be, then we start the procedure. We get access to the heart, either through the artery of the wrist or the artery in the groin, most often through the wrist as it's more comfortable for the patient. Once we get to the heart, we quickly get x-ray pictures and confirm the blockages and then we start working on the blockage. And very quickly, we will have the artery open with a balloon angioplasty and quickly followed by stent placement. And by then, usually, the patient's pain is mostly relieved and the patient becomes stable. Once the vessel is opened by balloon or stent, the clock will stop. The physician will then finish the procedure. The patient will be transported to our cardiac intensive care unit where they'll be monitored overnight. Medication administration will be managed and they will more than likely be discharged the next day. Prior to discharge, they will be referred to cardiac rehab. I think part of your procedure of getting better is that they do prescribe cardio rehab. They're very good about checking you and encouraging you. And they've encouraged me to like to push myself a little bit farther. You know, you've done this, do you think you can go another step? It makes you want to. And like I said, once you start feeling better, you do want to do more. ♪ ♪ My name is Dr. Claudio Greskin, one of the heart surgeons here at Self Regional Health Care. I've been here for the past 15 years. I was here since the beginning of this program. And what I do, I do heart surgery. ♪ ♪ When patients come and see me, particularly if they need to see me on a kind of an urgent or emergency situation, I realize quite often that I see people that they're very afraid. They just discovered that they have a potentially deadly disease and they don't know where their life is going to go from there. They don't know if they're going to survive. They don't know if they're going to be the same people, I mean the same person. And that's particularly when I have to treat a young male. There is a lot of concerns. And one of the things that we do that I think we do particularly well here is to reassure these people that actually it's not the end of the road, but it's the beginning of a new chapter in life. And we can take care of their disease very effectively, and we can restore their health to probably better what it was at the time that they came in. I want to sincerely thank the Foundation and all of the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. I really feel like this is making a huge difference for the patients in our community. We would really like to thank the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. We would really like to thank the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. We would really like to thank the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. We would really like to thank the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. We would really like to thank the donors to the Foundation for allowing us to provide this service at our hospital. for helping us provide these life-saving therapies to the community. I would like to thank the foundation and the generosity of all the donors that contribute to the foundation that makes all these possible. Thank you very much. On behalf of the cardiovascular service line, I would like to thank the Self Regional Healthcare Foundation for their generous donations. Yeah, I'm indebted to them, I really am. It just means I can't even comprehend or even put into words the appreciation that what it means to me, that I'm a better person because they have helped me literally to live a better life. It means so much to me that they've helped me, you know, I don't think I'd be here if it wasn't for them. Well, I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them.
Self Regional Healthcare is committed to fighting heart disease. Our advanced technologies and state-of-the art equipment provide the Lakelands region comprehensive care, from prevention to intervention, diagnosis to rehabilitation, and every step in between.
Quality care is achieved through a multidisciplinary team of professionals including board-certified cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists credentialed in cardiac anesthesia, certified operating room RNs, critical care RNs, specialized technologists in invasive and noninvasive care, physician assistants, perfusionists, respiratory therapists, exercise physiologists, and more.
Prevention
The first step in the fight against heart disease is preventing it through education, awareness, and screenings. We encourage you to visit a primary care provider (PCP) at least once per year, even if you feel healthy, so they can assess your vital signs and bloodwork. These tests can help your PCP diagnose problems such as hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes (high blood sugar), hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), and other conditions that significantly increase your risk for heart disease.
Preventative services:
- Primary Care
- Full Circle Care
- Early Heart Attack Care (EHAC) Education
- Hands Only CPR Training
Diagnostics
We’ve streamlined the diagnostic process. Employing the latest technology, our
cardiologists have the ability to rapidly acquire and interpret the results of an echocardiogram or cardiac catheterization. Diagnostic tools include electrocardiography, stress testing, tilt table testing, echocardiography, Holter monitoring, electrophysiologic testing and cardiac catheterization.
Diagnostic services:
- Cardiac catheterization and angiography
- Exercise treadmill stress testing with nuclear imaging
- Holter monitoring
- Event recording
- Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
- Echocardiography
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
- Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE)
- Coronary computed tomography angiogram (CCTA)
- Cardiac magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA)
Interventional Cardiology
Self uses the latest technology and equipment to provide interventional care. Balloon angioplasty, with or without stent implantation, can be used to restore blood flow to the heart muscle with excellent outcomes. When a cardiac emergency occurs, timing is critical, which is why we have cath lab staff on call 24 hours a day.
Interventional cardiology includes:
- Coronary angiography
- Right heart catheterization
- Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA)
- Coronary stenting
- Intracoronary ultrasound imaging
- Rotational atherectomy/Rotablator™
- Rheolytic thrombectomy/Angioj™
- CardioMEMS™ implantation
- Pulmonary Embolism treatment – EKOS™ drug therapy delivery system catheter and FlowTriever® mechanical thrombectomy device
- Life Supporting Devices – Intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) and Impella® heart pump
Cardiac Electrophysiology (EP) Services
We offer the full breadth of the most advanced, cutting-edge protocols for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac rhythm abnormalities, also known as arrhythmias. These include device therapies, invasive EP studies and interventional electrophysiology.
Device-based treatments include pacemakers for slow rhythms, implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) for abnormally fast rhythms that can result in sudden death, and cardiac resynchronization therapy (biventricular devices) for advanced heart failure.
Interventional electrophysiology utilizes radiofrequency energy (heat) or cryotherapy (cold) to selectively ablate or eliminate the source or the structures critical for an arrhythmia to perpetuate. The target for ablation can be pinpointed with an invasive EP study, where electrode catheters are strategically placed in the heart, permitting precise mapping of an arrhythmia.
EP services include:
- Loop recorder implants
- Pacemakers
- Defibrillators
- Biventricular pacemakers and defibrillators
- Bundle of His devices
- Leadless pacemakers
- EP diagnostic studies
- Catheter ablation of:
- Supraventricular tachycardia
- Atrial tachycardia
- Atrial flutter
- Atrial fibrillation—radiofrequency and cryo ablation
- AV node
- Ventricular tachycardia
Minimally Invasive Structural Heart Program
Self Regional also performs minimally invasive procedures to correct two of the most common structural problems in the heart.
WATCHMAN is a small device that is implanted to seal off the place where 90% of stroke-causing blood clots are formed in people with atrial fibrillation, or “AFib.” This device significantly reduces the risk of a stroke and also eliminates the need for blood thinners in patients who suffer from bleeding problems.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) can be an alternative to traditional open heart surgery in some patients with aortic stenosis. When the aortic valve becomes calcified, or hardened, the valve is unable to open and close properly. As a result, there is decreased blood flow from the heart to the rest of the body, which can lead to heart failure. By replacing the valve, we can relieve symptoms such as chronic fatigue, weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, and swelling.
Surgery
For some patients with heart disease, cardiac surgery remains the best option. Our surgeons are skilled, compassionate, and experienced in all areas of heart surgery including:
Surgical services include:
- Coronary artery revascularization
- Valve repair and replacement
- Atrial fibrillation surgery
- Aorta and great vessels surgery
Rehabilitation
Self Regional Healthcare’s comprehensive cardiopulmonary rehab program supports patients with heart and/or lung disease, as well as individuals who are at risk for developing these conditions. Blood pressure and heart rate response to exercise are recorded and analyzed during the first month so that our multidisciplinary team can establish an individualized exercise program tailored to your needs. A physician referral is required.
Rehabilitation services include:
- Basic fitness evaluation
- Personalized exercise program
- Monitored exercise sessions
- Risk factor reduction education
- Smoking cessation counseling
- Stress management classes
- Nutritional assessment and guidance
Vascular disease affects blood vessels, critical arteries and circulation in the legs and arms. This disease impacts just as many people each year as cancer.
Peripheral vascular disease is the leading cause of amputations in this country, and there is a particularly high incidence in upstate South Carolina.
Peripheral vascular disease generally strikes those over the age of 45 and is a frequent complication of diabetes. Factors that create higher-than-average risk include smoking, excess weight, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, heart problems and a family history of artery disease.
Self Regional was the first hospital in the state to dedicate a full team to treating vascular disease. We have a comprehensive facility specifically designed for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with circulatory problems. Non-invasive testing and treatment is the hallmark of the vascular services.
Our program features fellowship-trained surgeons, a dedicated, highly specialized vascular operating suite, a certified vascular lab and the first dedicated vascular nursing unit in the state. Patients benefit from the full devotion of surgeons, nurses, technicians, operating room staff and rehabilitation staff. This multidisciplinary team approach assures expedient and expert care. All possible surgical, endovascular and medical options are available.
Vascular surgeons concentrate on the medical and surgical treatment of peripheral vascular disease. These highly trained physicians are specialists in diagnosis, management, critical care and surgical and endovascular techniques for the treatment of vascular disease.
The vascular lab is located within Self Regional Medical Center, ensuring that patients receive very good supportive care from other specialists. Patients are able to receive this care close to home, family and friends.
The vascular lab at Self has had one of the lowest mortality rates in South Carolina in recent years, outranking many leading medical centers in our region.*
*The mortality rate was risk adjusted.
Diagnosis
Noninvasive vascular evaluations offer a number of advantages. These sophisticated tests are painless and can document the presence, location and severity of vascular disease. In addition, the noninvasive nature of the exam greatly reduces patient risk and enhances patient comfort when compared to invasive diagnostic procedures. Each comprehensive evaluation includes a complete problem-focused history, performance of the test with a hard copy and/or video recording of the data, physician-interpreted results, and readily available reports.
The noninvasive tests to diagnose vascular disease are conducted in the vascular lab at Self Regional. The lab was the first in the state, and one of the first 24 in the nation, to be recognized by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Vascular Laboratories (ICAVL). The lab is accredited by the ICAVL and is committed to providing high-level patient care and quality testing.
Two major diagnostic tools in the lab are the Duplex Ultrasound and CT Sonography. The Duplex Ultrasound is a 98-percent accurate and painless procedure that allows the physician to see inside the artery to measure blood flow and the size of any blockages or aneurysms. The patient is able to view the procedure on a color monitor as it is being performed by a registered vascular technologist. CT Sonography can link real-time images to the operating room. This technology is painless, without radiation, and it allows for immediate analysis or referral for treatment planning.
Some peripheral vascular conditions can be treated without surgery through the use of drugs and other therapies such as those listed below. These approaches can sometimes be used as a first line of defense to help patients understand and reduce risk factors.
Antiplatelet therapy
This treatment for an ischemic stroke aims to improve a patient’s blood flow. Platelet-inhibiting drugs can reduce the tendency for blood to clot by preventing blood platelets from sticking together as they pass through narrowed arteries.
TPA (tissue plasminogen activator) and urokinase
These powerful drugs may prevent or minimize damage to the brain and potential disabilities by dissolving a clot and restoring blood flow when administered to a patient within three hours of the onset of a stroke. For greatest accuracy and lowest risk, the drugs may be administered by catheter.
Medication for claudication
A doctor may prescribe medication to clear blocked arteries and improve circulation in the legs to help patients begin walking again.
Wound care therapy
Patients with non-healing wounds can benefit from comprehensive care provided by our multidisciplinary team of nurses, wound care specialists, therapists and surgeons.
Treatments
In choosing between different treatments for vascular problems, our goal is always to provide the least invasive procedure available. While we have extensive experience providing patients with minimally invasive treatment, board-certified vascular surgeons are always on call, able to provide the full scope of vascular surgery.
We are proud that the endovascular surgical suite at Self Regional is one of the most advanced in the Southeast. This computerized room features a special table that allows full-body X-rays with no obstruction. High-resolution digital data provides the surgeons with detailed information and is another example of how Self Regional brings advanced care closer to people in upstate South Carolina.
Carotid endarterectomy
To help prevent stroke – the third leading cause of death in the country – blockages in the carotid artery are removed in order to restore blood flow to the brain. The majority of patients are able to go home the next day. Self Regional has been recognized as having one of the lowest complication and length of stay rates in the state. We were awarded five stars, the highest ranking from HealthGrades®, for our carotid endarterectomy procedures.
Abdominal aortic aneurysm repair (open and endovascular)
This procedure saves lives by repairing worn-out sections of the artery in the abdomen. A graft is attached through the inside of the aneurysm to prevent rupture. If possible, this surgery is done with a minimally invasive technique, avoiding major surgery and minimizing hospitalization and recovery time. Self Regional received a five-star ranking for this procedure in 2003. Nationwide, ruptures of aortic aneurysms are 90 percent fatal and a leading cause of death.
However, early detection with a simple test and treatment can greatly improve patient outcomes.
Endovascular bypass/limb salvage bypass
We also received HealthGrades’® highest ranking for these procedures used to bypass blocked arteries (primarily in the legs) in order to avoid amputation or simply help people walk more easily. Minimally invasive techniques decrease the patient’s risk of infection and significantly improve recovery time.
Iliac artery angioplasty and stenting
In a minimally invasive outpatient procedure, stent implantation and balloon angioplasty are used to clear blocked arteries and allow significant improvements in patients’ ability to walk.
Vena cava filter placement
This procedure is used to prevent fatal blood clots from moving from the legs to the heart or lungs. The physician uses catheters and guide wires to place a filter that protects the heart and lungs from blood clots that develop in the legs. The procedure is minimally invasive and performed on an outpatient basis.
Renal artery angioplasty or surgery
When there is a blockage in the renal artery, this corrective surgery creates a bypass to the kidneys to control blood pressure. This procedure can be performed as an open or endovascular surgery.
Varicose vein surgery
To treat large, dilated and often-visible veins in the legs, we use the latest minimally invasive techniques such as laser and microwave catheterization.
Other special vascular procedures
- Traumatic injury vascular repair
- Hemodialysis access surgery: state-of-the-art catheters, fistulas and grafts
Self also offers these services, depending on the specific needs of the patient:
- Home health
- Outpatient physical therapy
- Cardiac rehabilitation
- Wellness Works Health and Fitness Center
Please call (864) 725-6058 for the name of a physician in your area.