Corazon Formed Hospital Consortium in PA to Change Regulation; Will Become State Verifier for PCI Services

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania  – Corazon, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based firm with offices in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Austin, TX, has been invited to become a verifier of programs in Pennsylvania seeking to offer coronary angioplasty (PCI) without on-site cardiac surgery services (OHS).

Corazon offers consulting, recruitment, interim management, and IT solutions for the heart, vascular, neuro, and orthopedics specialties. The firm has worked with over 500 hospitals nationally to evaluate, re-engineer, or implement best-practice PCI programs. This in-depth experience and breadth of expertise will be applied in an official capacity as a Pennsylvania state verifier for PCI programs. This coming 12 years after Corazon assisted with the opening of the PCI program at Uniontown Hospital – the first facility in the state to offer PCI with off-site OHS.

Until now, hospitals in PA offering PCI with OHS off-site were either mandated to participate in the Atlantic Cardiovascular Patient Outcomes Research Team Trial (CPORT-E) in 2005, or were approved to provide these services as part of a Demonstration Project, which began in 2002. With the conclusion of those, PA is now allowing PCI without OHS on site, but the hospital must be accredited by a state department-approved accreditation agency. Corazon will be named as such an agency.

Corazon has been intimately involved in the state legislation changes for the last several years. In June 2012, Corazon created a consortium of PA hospitals that were offering PCI services through CPORT-E or the Pennsylvania state demonstration project, including:

• Armstrong County Memorial Hospital – Kittanning
• Evangelical Community Hospital – Lewisburg
• Meadville Medical Center – Meadville
• Memorial York Hospital – York
• Mount Nittany Medical Center – State College
• Riddle Hospital – Media
• Uniontown Hospital – Uniontown

In this collaborative consortium effort, leadership at these hospitals joined Corazon in meetings with the State Department of Health (PADOH) starting in September 2012 to discuss the need for PA to “level the playing field” for facilities currently offering PCI, and to develop standards for additional facilities to offer this life-saving service. At Corazon’s urging, backed by decades of expertise with PCI program planning and implementation, the state initiated pursuit of new language governing the offering of PCI services for all hospitals in PA.

Over the next several years, Corazon worked closely with the PADOH, providing pro bono assistance in the form of policies and procedures, resource materials, and expert testimony on the clinical value of angioplasty, and facilitated correspondence with renowned interventional cardiology medical experts. In regular monthly discussions with the state, Corazon and hospitals within the consortium were asked to assist in the review and recommendations of the recently published PA PCI regulations. This is the one of many instances of Corazon assisting in the development of PCI regulatory standards, as the firm created a similar outcome in Georgia and Florida, and continues working with other state governing agencies. As a verifier on behalf of the PADOH, Corazon will help bring life-saving angioplasty into communities where these services are critical to the wellbeing of the patients across the Commonwealth.

For more information, visit https://www.corazoninc.com