Abstract
BACKGROUND: New Jersey amended Cardiac Law (P.L. 2021, c. 18) in 2021, granting cardiac catheterization laboratories without onsite cardiac surgery services licensure to perform non-high risk elective percutaneous intervention (PCI) procedures. Patients considered for elective PCI must undergo careful selection, screening, and risk stratification. PROJECT RATIONALE: Hunterdon Health, a community hospital without onsite cardiac surgery services, recognized the need to establish an elective PCI risk assessment and exclusion criteria tool to be used pre-, intra-, and postprocedure to guide with appropriate patient selection and discharge home the same day of the procedure. PROJECT SUMMARY: Our aim was the implementation of a novel risk tool at the onset of an elective PCI program. We examined the tool's usage and effectiveness in guiding high-risk lesion identification and same-day discharge. TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: A community hospital's cardiac catheterization laboratory licensed for non-high risk elective PCI can safely stratify risk and provide high-quality and safe care to the community that it serves.