Cardiac surgery partially reopens at Wynn

Open-heart surgery still on pause pending review

UTICA, NY (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) — Over a month since it paused its open-heart surgery program, the Wynn Hospital in Utica has provided an update on its cardiac services.

The hospital paused all open-heart surgeries on Wednesday, May 8 after inspectors with the New York State Department of Health issued an immediate jeopardy notice. That notice means a situation has occurred that is likely to cause or has caused injury or impairment.

The hospital announced that their Structural Heart Program is set to resume on Thursday, June 20. According to a statement issued by the hospital, a cardiac surgeon will be required to be present in the operating room while these procedures are being performed. On Thursday, June 20, the Mohawk Valley Health System — which includes the Wynn Hospital — will have cardiac surgeon coverage to cover the following procedures:

• TAVR is a procedure that replaces a diseased aortic valve with a man-made valve.
• WATCHMAN, a minimally invasive procedure during which a device is implanted in the heart to treat atrial fibrillation (AFib) and reduce the risk of stroke.
• MitraClip is a small device used to stop leaking in the mitral valve that is implanted through an interventional cardiology procedure called transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) using a flexible, hollow tube (catheter).

Special mention was made of open-heart surgery, which is still on pause, according to the hospital. The hospital said that a review of the open-heart surgery program is underway. When the program was paused, MVHS and the Wynn Hospital contracted with an external medical agency to review their program.

According to the statement, the review is scheduled to be completed by the end of June. After the review is done, the hospital said it should take a couple of months to restart their open-heart program.

“Patient care and safety has been and will always be our top priority,” Darlene Stromstad, President and CEO of MVHS, said in a statement. “While there has been a frenzy of negativity around our decisions, the fact remains that the MVHS Administration and Board of Directors keep patients as the focus of all that we do and we act accordingly.”