The Department of Cardiology consists of the divisions of clinical cardiology, noninvasive cardiology, invasive cardiology and electrophysiology. Cardiac consultation services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on an emergent and urgent basis as well as an elective basis. Noninvasive testing, including exercise stress testing with and without myocardial imaging is performed on a daily basis 5 days a week.

Echocardiography is available 7 days a week. Echocardiography is also available on an emergent basis by the cardiologist themselves or cardiology fellow. EKG services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Invasive Cardiology Division performs over 3,500 cardiac caths a year, and more than 1,500 angioplasties a year. This service, under the direction of Dr. James Malpeso, is available on an emergency basis for diagnostic cardiac catheterization.

The division of Electrophysiology is under the direction of Dr. Soad Bekheit and in addition to electrophysiological testing, Dr. Bekheit is also available for urgent, emergent and routine consultations on an inpatient and outpatient basis. In addition, the Electrophysiology lab evaluates patients with tilt table testing and also pacemaker follow up.

The Department of Cardiology provides a cardiac clinic at the Medical Arts Pavilion a half-day each week, and also a clinic in Brooklyn a half-day a week.

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
There are multiple ongoing quality improvement programs in the division of Cardiology. The major programs involve those of ischemic heart disease and congestive heart failure. The program are monitored by the case managers and IPRO and JCAHO quality standards are used. This is a continuous and ongoing quality study and quarterly reports are made to the Department of Medicine. In addition, there are quarterly improvement programs in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory on an ongoing basis and the Electrophysiology Laboratory. The division of Cardiology in cooperation with the administration of the hospital keeps an ongoing record of the performance of the cardiologists on staff for recredentialing purposes.