Parkwest offers a complete continuum of heart care from prevention efforts (education, exercise programs, diet and stress management) to early detection, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, using the most complete and advanced range of technologies and healing protocols available in East Tennessee.

What Is A Cardiac Catheterization?
A cardiac catheterization is a procedure using small catheters in a x-ray room to evaluate the arteries on a patient's heart.

What Happens If I Have A Blocked Coronary Artery?
Your cardiologist will work with you to decide the best and safest treatment for your blockage. Many blockages can be treated in the cath lab with the interventional tools we have available. Stents, rotational atherectomy, angiojet and intravascular ultrasound are some of the technologies that the cardiologist can recommend.

Cardiology At Parkwest
Parkwest Medical Center offers its patients the latest cardiac technology. The cath lab has recently opened a fourth room with the latest in digital imaging. This enables the physician to glean improved information during procedures. For more information, see digital cath lab below.

We also offer the newest stent technology available on the market today, including the drug-coated stent that prevents the reblockage of clogged arteries. For more information, see drug-coated stent below.

Services
Parkwest Medical Center is dedicated to offering the best care and current technology to our consumers. With a cardiac staff that performed more than 4,500 diagnostic and 1,100 interventional procedures last year, Parkwest offers experience and expertise to the community.

Parkwest is also proud of its electro-physiology program. This program focuses on the electrical system of the heart. We offer diagnosis and intervention of complex heart rhythm abnormalities, permanent pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and biventricular implantable devices.

We also offer peripheral vascular studies with intervention for arterial disease in other areas of the body, such as diseased vessels of the legs and kidneys.

More Heart Help
Parkwest Medical Center understands the need for heart patients and their families to feel informed and involved in their care. Through our invasive and non-invasive (holter scans, echo studies, stress testing) procedures we can offer patients the best information and services for their cardiac health.

Digital Cath Lab

Physicians Able to View Cardiac X-rays in Seconds
Physicians at Parkwest Medical Center can now better view and treat blocked coronary arteries with a new all-digital cardiovascular imaging system. The GE Innova™ 2000 is a revolutionary system that allows cardiologists to view hard-to-see blood vessels with exceptional clarity even under the most difficult conditions.

The digital technology enables faster procedures, requires less radiation exposure, and allows physician to see details, especially balloons and stents, more clearly. The end result is that better images produce better patient care.

The Innova™ 2000, used in both diagnostic angiograms and angioplasty treatment studies, is equipped with a digital detector that reads x-rays passing through the patient's body. The detector creates an almost instantaneous image on a high-resolution monitor that can be viewed, networked, and archived electronically in a totally filmless fashion.

Cardiologists also can "zoom in" to look at important areas in greater detail, allowing them to make confident diagnoses and perform therapeutic interventions if required.

To view a news release about the digital cath lab, click here.
To view a fact sheet about the digital cath lab, click here.

Drug-Coated Stent

Prevents Reblockage of Clogged Coronary Arteries
Heart patients at Parkwest Medical Center now have the opportunity to receive a highly anticipated medical product recently approved by the FDA. Parkwest was one of the first hospitals in Knoxville to implant the new drug-coated stent to treat clogged coronary arteries.

A coronary stent is a small tube that is mounted on a balloon catheter and inserted into a blocked artery. When the balloon is inflated at the site of the blockage, the stent expands and is pressed into the inner wall of the artery, acting as a scaffold to hold the artery open.

The new stent is coated with a drug that is absorbed inside the vessel to keep scar tissue from growing through openings in the stent mesh. This prevents reblockage and potential repeat procedures. Studies show that the drug-coated stent will reduce the incidence of reblockage by up to 90 percent.

To view a news release about the drug-coated stent, click here.