Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Mercy Medical Center is seeking permission from the state to add an open-heart surgery program to its offerings, but other hospitals in eastern Iowa have said an additional heart surgery program isn't necessary.
According to a statement provided to The Gazette, Mercy wants to add a cardiovascular surgical program "based on the increasing need for additional cardiac surgical services and the limited access and capacity for patients to (obtain) cardiac surgery in Cedar Rapids."
Currently, roughly 150 Mercy patients each year have to be transferred outside the system for heart surgery, and they wait an average of four days before that happens.
Hospitals like UnityPoint-St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City-based University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, however, say 150 patients isn't enough volume to constitute a new program.
Specifically, St. Luke's fears that, should a program start at Mercy in Iowa City, it will cause both hospitals' volume to fall below 200 surgeries per year — a minimum threshold for cardiovascular surgical programs, per Iowa code.
"We are disappointed by Mercy's decision and will oppose it," a St. Luke's statement reads, according to The Gazette. "Dividing the volume of open-heart cases jeopardizes the quality of care for our community and will unnecessarily increase cost for these limited number of cases."
The opposing hospitals also note that the number of open-heart surgeries in Iowa has fallen in the last few years — according to data cited by The Gazette, 3,500 open-heart surgeries were performed in Iowa in 2000, but that number fell to 1,700 in 2014.
A study released in 2015 shows that when hospitals and surgeons perform a low volume of cases in a certain procedure, it can put patients at higher risk of poor outcomes or death.
Mercy Medical Center will appear before the State Health Facilities Council July 8 to request a certificate of need for the cardiovascular surgery program, according to The Gazette.