By Tim Bonfield
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Victor DiPilla, vice president of patient services, in the cardiovascular Heart Center's step-down suite. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

MOUNT AUBURN - For thousands of Greater Cincinnati residents who suffer heart attacks or find out they have clogged arteries, a modernistic four-story building with its long, all-glass front will soon become their destination.

Dubbed simply "The Heart Center," the $77 million addition to Christ Hospital reflects Greater Cincinnati's latest advance in the rapidly changing, extremely competitive field of cardiac care.

But even as Christ Hospital's new heart center opens, questions remain about how it will function. That's because the physician group that treats the vast majority of cardiac patients at Christ Hospital has proposed building its own heart hospital.

Christ Hospital's center opens to some patients on Nov. 24, with parts opening in stages over the next few weeks. Related construction will continue for another 18 months.

"This project updates the cardiac facilities to the absolute state-of-the-art in what care is supposed to be," said Dr. Russ Vester, director of cardiovascular services for the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, which runs Christ Hospital. "This kind of facility will demonstrate very clearly that the need for additional state-of-the-art facilities is redundant and superfluous."

Christ Hospital has been the Tristate's biggest cardiac care center for years. In 2002, more than 800 people got open-heart surgery there. Another 2,200 received stents and other treatments to open clogged arteries. More than 3,700 got diagnostic angiograms.

Is another needed?

The new wing opens as the Ohio Heart Health Center, the largest cardiac physician group in Cincinnati, proceeds with plans for a for-profit, free-standing heart hospital in Norwood or Sharonville.

That proposal has put Cincinnati at ground zero in an industry-wide debate over whether specialty hospitals will improve care for patients and reduce costs or hurt full-service, nonprofit hospitals and drive up costs.

ABOUT THE CENTER

Location: Mount Auburn Size: Four stories, 123,000 square feet, attached to rear of hospital Cost: $77 million, all from the Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess Home Association, the nonprofit foundation that formed Christ Hospital. Opening dates: Some patients will be using the new facility on Nov. 24. Intensive care units open Dec. 2. ER opens Dec. 7. Public open house 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Floor-by-floor: Level D: Storage area Level C: Emergency department, main entrance and lobby. Floor includes 30 private rooms and two trauma rooms. Six more patient rooms in second phase. Level B: Includes 16-bed cardiovascular intensive care unit and 12-bed surgical intensive care unit. Level A: Includes 35-bed cardiovascular step-down unit for people who no longer need intensive care. Level 1: Rooftop gardens for patients and visitors. Related heart services: Five cardiac catheterization labs, two angiography suites, two electrophysiology suites and four operating rooms dedicated to cardiac surgery remain in "old" portions of the hospital next to the new Heart Center. Next steps: During the next 18 months, Christ Hospital plans to spend another $20 million to renovate admitting area, cardiac catheterization labs, electrophysiology labs, recovery rooms, radiology areas and a heart station (where noninvasive cardiac testing is performed). It also plans to build two new operating rooms for cardiac surgery.

The Christ Hospital project was announced in 2000, two years before the specialty hospital idea emerged. The opening of the new wing will not interfere with plans for the heart hospital, said Dr. Dean Kereiakes, medical director for Ohio Heart.

"I think it (Christ Hospital heart center) will be an asset to the community. But the evolution of heart care in Cincinnati - and the active participation of physicians in that evolution - will continue," Kereiakes said.

Ohio Heart doctors say they intend to continue working at Christ Hospital even after they build their own hospital. They also intend to keep working at other hospitals.

Health Alliance officials, meanwhile, say that Christ Hospital's center will thrive if the Ohio Heart doctors leave. That's because other cardiologists and heart surgeons will increase their role at Christ Hospital, Vester said.

Details of the building

Whether the free-standing heart hospital makes its goal of opening in 2005, people will be getting care from the updated Christ Hospital center within weeks. Its features include:

• A new emergency department twice the size of the existing one. Sixteen new cardiac intensive care rooms each about a third bigger than the ones they replace.

• A powerful new computer system that can share much more medical data than before. Real-time vital signs, lab test results, digital chest X-rays, even film clips from angiograms can be shared via computers in the ER, the operating rooms and intensive care rooms. Eventually, the system is expected to be capable of transmitting data to doctors' offices, and possibly even to the tiny screens of next-generation cell phones.

• A variety of consumer-friendly amenities, including a new parking garage just for cardiac patients and families, rooftop gardens where patients can go for a view of downtown even while connected to monitors, nicer waiting rooms, rooms with more natural light, and other decorative touches.

Competition fierce

Christ Hospital needed to modernize just to maintain market share in a city that already has eight open-heart centers and could get two more within two years.

In recent years, Christ Hospital has faced increasing competition from St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Northern Kentucky, a nearly 2-year-old heart program at Mercy Hospital Fairfield, and the 1999 opening of a for-profit heart hospital in Dayton.

Now there's the proposed Cincinnati heart hospital, which would largely replace services at Deaconess Hospital, whose parent company is partnering with the Ohio Heart Health Center. Mercy Health Partners is studying whether to open heart programs at hospitals in Anderson Township and Mount Airy.

Although hospital chief executives have publicly attacked the proposed for-profit heart hospital as unnecessary, there is little criticism of Christ Hospital's nonprofit project.

"Christ Hospital is doing what they feel needs to be done to stay current," said Tom Urban, president and chief executive of Mercy Health Partners. "Upgrading and modernizing is something hospitals have to do from time to time."

E-mail tbonfield@enquirer.com