From the St. Louis Business Journal -- Friday, January 23, 2009

Missouri Baptist invested $2.5 million in two new cardiac catheterization labs.

The Hospital already performs 4,900 catheterizations a year. In October, it opened a newly renovated 1,062-square-foot inpatient cath lab. Work currently is wrapping up on a 450-square-foot outpatient lab dedicated to diagnostic catheterizations. The new labs are approximately double the size of the Hospital's previous cath lab. The two new labs, connected to the cardiac surgery suite, are on the second floor of Building D, just north of the main Hospital building. Get a map.

Robert Kopitsky, MD, medical director of the inpatient lab and a member of the Hospital's Executive Committee, expects a patient volume increase to come mainly through the outpatient diagnostic lab. That lab was designed to compete with freestanding cath labs. Previously, outpatients coming to Missouri Baptist for diagnostic catheterizations were intermingled with ongoing procedures, such as angioplasties and even urgent procedures transferred from the emergency room.

"A key to satisfaction when people come as outpatients to have a procedure is that it's done in a timely fashion," say John Hess, MD, medical director of the outpatient facility.