Hoag Putting Heart Into Boosting Business

Absence does not make the heart business grow fonder.

Consider all those people who used to show up at local hospitals for electrocardiograms to check out their hearts. Now, under cost pressures brought by managed care, they’re seeking such routine tests at their local doctor’s office.

That means a heart center, such as Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, can no longer rely on such routine services as a source of revenue. Its Heart Institute, which serves about 50,000 patients a year, including 20,000 who come in for EKGs, must develop new sources.

As more seniors switch from Medicare into managed care programs, “we see a decline in hospital-based procedures,” says Victoria Wilson, Hoag’s vice president of ambulatory services. “Almost everybody [in the medical community] does an EKG in their office, and stress tests are pretty common, too.”

Consequently, Hoag is planning a local media advertising campaign later this year to promote a handful of cutting-edge services it offers. They include “keyhole” surgery for replacing a diseased heart valve, which involves a four-inch incision instead of the traditional foot-long cut through the rib cage. Wilson says the newer technique enables the patient to recuperate faster, leave the hospital after less time, and save money. Hoag did its first such procedure last fall and has completed a total of five.

It is also beating its chest over five cases in which surgeons replaced a patient’s defective aortic artery with the same individual’s pulmonary artery, then used transplanted tissue to replace the pulmonary vessel.

Wilson says the hospital expects to build business with managed care plans. “This is what the future of cardiac surgery is going to look like,” she says.

Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com