Wynn Hospital temporarily halts open-heart surgeries; about 1 patient a week affected

The Mohawk Valley Health System has temporarily stopped its open-heart surgery program at Wynn Hospital, officials announced Wednesday.

All other cardiac services and procedures, including cardiac catheterizations, angioplasties, the placement of stents and minimally invasive heart procedures, remain open.

Anyone experiencing a time-sensitive emergency, such as a possible heart attack, should still come to the hospital’s emergency department where almost all heart attacks can still be treated. Patients with more severe issues that require open-heart surgery will be stabilized and then transferred to another hospital.

The health system has paused the surgeries to bring in an external organization to review the program to help strengthen it and reopen as quickly as possible, according to a statement from the health system.

“The quality of care and patient safety are the top priorities for MVHS and our flagship Wynn Hospital,” the statement read. “MVHS leadership, medical staff and board of directors have been looking into the strength and quality of open-heart surgery at the Wynn Hospital.”

Their concerns were echoed by New York State Department of Health staff doing a site survey at this hospital this week who “expressed concerns about the open-heart surgery program,” the statement said.

The statement did not make any further mention of what specifically triggered the concerns and led to the review.

Surgeons perform about one open-heart surgery a week on average, officials said. No patients have had to be transferred yet, a spokeswoman confirmed.

The health system is working with other providers in the region to make sure all patients needing open-heart surgery receive appropriate care, officials said.

Surgeons have been performing open-heart surgery in Utica since 1997 when St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare, not yet affiliated in MVHS, created the Mohawk Valley Heart Institute. Open-heart surgeries were performed at St. Elizabeth and, as part of the agreement, all babies were thereafter born at Faxton St. Luke’s.

The MVHS cardiac surgery program offers everything short of heart transplants, for which patients must travel to the University of Rochester or farther.

The American College of Cardiology has designated MVHS a HeartCARE Center: National Distinction of Excellence, one of only 36 such hospitals nationwide. It is also an Excellus BlueCross Distinction Center for Cardiac Care.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: MVHS announces temporary halt of open-heart surgery at Wynn Hospital