The New Jersey Senate Health Committee passed a bill that would allow facilities other than cardiac surgery centers to perform cardiac interventions, Insider NJ reported Dec. 7.
Cardiac surgery centers currently perform outpatient cardiac procedures in New Jersey. This bill would allow other facilities to perform cardiac procedures to expand patient access.
While 29 hospitals in New Jersey can perform certain cardiac procedures, those hospitals are in only 14 counties. If this bill passes, patients outside of those 14 counties will have easier access to cardiac care.
Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, said, "Life-saving cardiac procedures have been modernized and made far safer over the last decade, so it is only fair and pragmatic for those seeking these critical surgeries to have every opportunity to access them with the greatest convenience possible."