Heart and Vascular

Emergency care

Working closely with the Heart and Vascular Center, Riverside’s Emergency Room STEMI Alert (heart attack) program is offered in conjunction with area emergency and rescue workers and insures the rapid delivery of emergency heart care. Mobile EKG units are used to obtain and transmit an EKG to emergency physicians prior to the patient’s arrival at the hospital. Riverside emergency and heart and vascular medical teams are able to rapidly mobilize, providing emergency angioplasty and stent treatment to patients with heart attacks in progress. This innovative program has drastically reduced treatment times.

Home health

Riverside home health services provides a unique home monitoring system that allows patients to record and send vital sign and other clinical data to a review station staffed by registered nurses. This type of follow up care that can also include home visits, brings peace of mind and well being to our cardiac patients and their families.

Inpatient care

The Cardiac Surgery ICU (CSICU) is located on the fourth floor of the main hospital and is designed around the immediate recovery needs of open heart and vascular surgery patients. There are fourteen designated cardiac care beds, where each patient is closely monitored by a highly trained critical care nursing staff. Patients typically spend less than 24 hours in this intensive care environment before they are transferred to the telemetry unit also located on the fourth floor. The telemetry unit is also staffed by specially trained cardiac nurses and provides continuous EKG monitoring for patients in a less intense environment with more flexible visiting hours. The telemetry unit is generally where patients go after stent and angioplasty procedures.

Interventional radiology

In addition to angiograms, our cardiovascular physician specialists perform catheter-based treatments including balloon angioplasty and stent procedures to diagnose and repair blockages. Following the procedure, many patients are able to return home the same day to recover in an outpatient setting. In addition to increased patient comfort, outpatient recovery keeps medical costs to a minimum.