Sharing Cardiac Catheterization Services: A Way to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs

Cardiac catheterization is a procedure used to diagnose possible heart conditions. It is performed in 90 Federal hospitals: 66 Veterans' Administration (VA) facilities; 20 Department of Defense (DOD) facilities; 3 Public Health Service hospitals; and the National Institutes of Health clinical center in Bethesda, Maryland. Several medical professional organizations, as well as the VA, have developed quidelines for cardiac catheterization laboratories. These guidelines are intended to keep physicians' skills high and to minimize risk to patients. DOD and the Public Health Service have no such guidelines.