Board delays vote on cardiac care bid (USA)

"Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama, must wait until at least July to learn if its proposal to do procedures that will open clogged arteries will move forward in the required state approval process. The Statewide Health Coordinating Council delayed a vote on a request by Keller and three other hospitals that want to do percutaneous coronary interventions without on-site open heart surgery availability. Crestwood Hospital in Huntsville, Decatur General Hospital and Stringfellow Memorial Hospital in Anniston joined Keller in the request for a change in the state health plan to allow the procedures. The hospitals contend that the health plan does not recognize modern advances that make inserting stents, balloons and other catheterizations to open arteries much safer than when the state wrote the guidelines"