Expanded services include new Heart Rhythm Center and consolidated space to improve collaboration and patient convenience

Published: October 17, 2023

Norton Heart & Vascular Institute on the Norton Audubon Hospital campus now has new space that will bring together seven specialty services in one location. This includes the addition of electrophysiology (a test performed to assess the heart’s electrical activity for abnormal heartbeats). Norton Healthcare has invested $10 million to make this new outpatient cardiovascular care space a reality. The aim is to promote collaboration among specialists while also offering patients the convenience of seeing several providers in one place. The new space will open to patients on Tuesday, Oct. 17.

Specialties include:

• Advanced heart failure and recovery
• General cardiology
• Cardiac surgery
• Electrophysiology
• Interventional cardiology
• Structural heart
• Vascular surgery

Located at 2355 Poplar Level Road in Norton Medical Plaza West on the Norton Audubon Hospital campus, the multilevel space offers convenient first-floor registration for outpatient services, including labs and diagnostic testing.

“The expansion of heart and vascular services on the Norton Audubon Hospital campus has been a vision for many years,” said Joseph A. Lash, M.D., executive medical director and Rounsavall Family Foundation Endowed Chair, Norton Heart & Vascular Institute. “Norton Audubon Hospital has a long history of providing innovative heart and vascular care, and we are excited to bring more outpatient services and clinical expertise to this centralized location in Louisville.”

Many of these services were already available on the Norton Audubon Hospital campus however, they had outgrown their spaces and there was need to consolidate them for patient convenience. With the newly renovated building, Norton Heart & Vascular Institute now occupies more than 31,000 total square feet. The space offers more than 40 exam rooms and several procedure rooms for outpatient vein and vascular procedures, device check and monitoring capabilities for patients with heart rhythm devices. The area is designed to have open staff areas that facilitate cross-specialty collaboration for improved communication and patient care.

Chest Pain Clinic

The space also includes a new Norton Heart & Vascular Institute Chest Pain Clinic and a triage area for those with unexplained chest pain or changes in how they feel that could be related to a heart condition. Norton Healthcare providers can refer patients to the Chest Pain Clinic for observation and testing in the event of non-emergent chest pain. Once a patient is referred to the Chest Pain Clinic, they may receive an EKG or diagnostic labs. Further testing, such as stress testing, an echocardiogram or advanced cardiac CT imaging may be ordered while under observation of advanced cardiac care provider.

“Non-emergent chest pain is a problem that is commonly seen by primary care providers and urgent care centers,” said D. Sean Stewart, M.D., interventional cardiologist, system director for structural and interventional cardiology, Norton Heart & Vascular Institute. “As emergency departments are often maxed out in capacity with patients needing emergent care, the Chest Pain Clinic is a resource for patients with intermediate chest pain to be seen and evaluated. A treatment plan will be established as needed by the center’s multidisciplinary team of experts.”

The Chest Pain Clinic is not for high-risk patients thought to be having a heart attack. Those patients need to be transported to an emergency department at Norton Audubon Hospital, Norton Brownsboro Hospital and Norton Hospital, which all hold the region’s highest accreditation from the American College of Cardiology as a Chest Pain Center, where established protocols and services are in place to provide potentially lifesaving care for a heart attack.

“There are a wide variety of reasons people can present with chest pain besides blockages in an artery. Inflammation around the heart muscles, inflammation in the rib spaces, daily stresses of life, even gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) — all can manifest as chest pain,” Dr. Stewart said. “These types of situations are what we anticipate seeing most in the new Chest Pain Clinic.”

Overall expansion to meet patients’ needs

The new Norton Heart & Vascular Institute outpatient services space is part of a larger $88 million multiphase project that also received financial support from the community through the Norton Healthcare Foundation. This investment expanded heart and vascular care services on the Norton Audubon campus over the past five years:

• Creating a cardiac intensive care unit with specially trained staff and cardiac intensivists to help patients recover from heart surgery, device implantation and cardiovascular events. The unit features round-the-clock telemetry monitoring.
• Adding a cardiac catheterization (cath) lab and finishing the on-going remodeling of three existing labs to now offer four state-of-the-art cath labs. 
• Adding two electrophysiology labs for heart rhythm procedures with best in class technology.
• Adding a second hybrid operating room for structural heart and vascular surgeries featuring traditional operating room technology and image-guided (x-ray) interventional equipment.