Mountain State Matters

The Charleston Gazette reported today that smaller hospitals in West Virginia want to be able to offer heart procedures–and they’re meeting resistance from three of the state’s large hospitals that offer the surgery. Currently, only six hospitals in the entire state offer open heart surgery.

The issue has become contentious, in part because heart catheterizations are one of the few profit-making services that hospitals offer.

In letters to the Health Care Authority, executives at large hospitals said they’ve invested millions of dollars in catheterization labs to diagnose and treat heart disease. They predict they’ll lose patients to nearby hospitals that duplicate services.

For instance, Wheeling Hospital, which offers open-heart bypass surgery, would have to compete with hospitals only a few miles away, if Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and Reynolds Memorial Hospital started to offer life-saving catheterizations.

“Creating duplicative programs at hospitals across town will do nothing to increase access, will do everything to increase costs and, most important, will decrease quality,” wrote Wheeling Hospital Chief Executive Officer Ron Violi last week.

True, but what about the rest of the state? The Wheeling area is pretty heavily populated (by West Virginia standards) and is right by both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Currently, Charleston is the southernmost city in the state offering heart surgery (there are two hospitals offering procedures there). Wouldn’t it, in fact, improve access to care to allow smaller hospitals in smaller cities to do the surgery as well?

If hospitals in Princeton, Bluefield, Beckley, Welch, Williamson and Lewisburg could all perform heart surgery, at least the costs of having to airlift heart attack patients to Charleston would be eliminated. I have no idea how legitimate Violi’s concerns about quality are, but if it is a legitimate concern maybe having qualified surgeons staffing the state’s hospitals should be a priority. You can check out West Virginia health stats here…they aren’t really uplifting.

Photo by: Graf3000