OUTPATIENT SERVICES: Our OPD is one of the busiest sections of our hospital. About 300 new patients and 500 review patients are seen per day. The bulk of the patient population is referred from other institutions and hospitals. Our OPD is a major attraction among the General Practitioners of the city as it gives a complete workup of common clinical cardiac problems, including an echocardiogram in a single visit. A rapid screening for cardiac fitness of inpatients who await non-cardiac surgery is available. We also provide support to the master cardiac health check program.
INPATIENT SERVICES: This forms the backbone of our service. People from all over the state stay together in our wards. The problems range from minor forms of rheumatic heart disease and myocardial infarctions to rare complex cyanotic heart disease. About 1700 patients are treated as In patient per month in our department. Our success rate in all common curable heart diseases is comparable to the best available in the country.
CHEST PAIN CLINIC: A new initiative of Chest pain clinic which functions 24x7 as first point of contact for patients presenting with chest pain was started by our department. The clinic currently runs as a separate unit near main casualty. This clinic facilitates the early identification of cases of acute coronary syndrome especially STEMI and referral to coronary care unit for intiation of early treatment. Along with this non cardiac chest pain cases are segregated and referred appropriately to respective departments. The clinic has a cardiologist and a nursing staff available throughout. The clininc is equipped with ECG, ECHO, Cardiac monitor, crash cart and necessary medications for emergency use.
CORONARY CARE UNIT: Our CCU started functioning in 1972, shortly after the concept of acute coronary care was introduced in the Western world. It has been associated with all aspects of the evolution of coronary care. It provides the state of the art of coronary care with one of the shortest mean doors to lysis time of 10mts ever reported. It's now realized that we are probably the only Centre where fully qualified consultants administer the treatment right from the patient's arrival in CCU. The overall AMI mortality has steadily declined from around 20% in the early seventies to 7% currently, bringing it at par with sophisticated centers of the world. There has been a number of significant contributions to the world literature from this CCU.
INTENSIVE CARE UNIT: This unit has eight beds with exclusive staff, and it receives patients from Coronary Care Unit. It also has facilities to tackle any emergency.
INTENSIVE CARDIAC CARE UNIT (ICCU): Our institute has a 8 bedded Intensive Cardiac care unit with dedicated nursing staff and advanced monitoring equipments and provisions for bedside procedures. It has been functioning since 1999. It covers all non-coronary emergencies like heart blocks, end-stage heart failure, and valvular diseases.
ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY: Our Echo lab is one of the earliest to be launched in the country in the year 1978. It has contributed immensely to the development and propagation of this vital non-invasive facility in the region. It has grown with strong foundations in the fundamentals of echocardiography, right from M-mode echo to the current tissue Doppler echocardiography. Around 70,000 echocardiograms are done per annum. We have reported original work on Dobutamine stress echocardiography and the largest collection of infective endocarditis and intracardiac masses.
3-DIMENSIONAL ECHO: We have installed a three-dimensional echocardiographic machine in our center of excellence in cardiac imaging. The technology used is the latest in the field, and our hospital is one of the earliest to get this in the country. It has the capacity to process 3-D data in real time and produce stunning images of the heart in 3 Dimensions. It also has strain rate imaging and has the facility to analyze the entire raw data offline.
STRESS ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY: using drugs like dobutamine is specifically used in patients with Coronary artery disease who cannot exercise. It is becoming a useful investigation in the evaluation of CAD. We perform this test in a selected subgroup of patients with CAD.
TRANSESOPHAGEAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY: We have three Echo machines with the facility to do TEE. Being a referral hospital, TEE has become a vital investigation in our Institute. On an average 30 TEEs are done per month in our institute.
HOLTER 24-HOUR ECG: The new Holter system helps to analyze complex brady and tachy arrhythmias and aids us in selecting patients for pacemaker implantation. We are also aiming to improve the utility value of this device in various coronary artery disease patients.
EXERCISE STRESS TESTING: Stress ECG by means of computerized treadmill and analyzer did for all patients prior to a coronary angiogram and also for subsequent evaluation of revascularisation procedures.
LABORATORY SERVICES: Include Bio-Chemistry, Immunology, Microbiology, and Clinical Pathology. They do excellent work in the pre and post-operative care of the patients. The cardiac immunology and microbiology laboratory have made a mark in the preventive program of Rheumatic Heart disease. This cardiac immunology laboratory was the first Government institution to organize serological diagnosis of rheumatic fever.
CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION LABORATORY: Our cardiac catheterization lab is one of the earliest to be installed in our country and has pioneered early research work in defining all forms of congenital heart disease. This enabled our surgeons to bring our Institute an international center for excellence in cardiothoracic surgery. We have a sophisticated digital Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory (Philips), one of the best in the country. Right, and left heart catheterization and angiogram are done routinely for diagnosis and management. Coronary angiogram has become an essential investigation for our patients. We do, on average, 3000 procedures /per year. We perform regular coronary and non-coronary interventions. Primary angioplasty is available 24x7. Pulmonary and mitral balloon valvuloplasty, device closure for ASD, cath study for congenital heart disease is performed in many patients.
PACEMAKER PROGRAMME: Our institution has done pioneering work in pacemaker implantation. The first pacemaker was put in the year 1975. The fact that makes our pacemaker program unique is it is done totally free of cost. Our institution has got extensive experience in long-term pacemaker-related complications. We have experienced a variety of pacemaker-related clinical issues, all effectively managed.
OTHER FACILITIES : Dedicated Auditorium for conducting all events and academic activities of the institute. Portable Xray machine to take Bedside Xray for ICU patients.