Macon Magazine

Medical Center’s new heart institute offers latest treatments

By Skippy Davis

The Georgia Heart Center now hangs its hat in the new Albert L. Luce Jr. Heart Institute, the latest addition — and the largest one ever — built by The Medical Center of Central Georgia.

The $60 million heart tower houses an additional $25 million to $30 million in technology and equipment for the care of the human heart. Major donors were Albert L. “Buddy” Luce Jr. of Fort Valley, the Peyton Anderson Foundation and more than a dozen other contributors.

Rising eight stories above the intersection of First and Hemlock streets, the heart tower has a total square footage of 241,693 and an additional 181,000 square feet in its new adjacent parking deck.

Don Faulk, president and CEO of Central Georgia Health System and The Medical Center of Central Georgia, has traveled throughout the state, addressing the Georgia Hospital Association and officials of referring hospitals to alert them to the benefits the center promises.

“It’s going to benefit them because they want their patients to be here, their patients want to be here, and they haven’t been able to be here because we’re so full,” Faulk said. “Now we’ll have more capacity to move (incoming) patients into beds as necessary.”

Open-heart surgeries and most critical cardiac care will continue to be housed in the hospital’s existing surgery center, but all cardiac diagnostic services, such as heart catheterizations, arteriograms, stress tests, ultrasounds and even basic EKGs are moving into the new tower. Likewise, interventional procedures — angioplasties and implantations of stents, pacemakers, defibrillators and heart-failure devices — will be performed there.

“The tower expands what we already have, and it will help us develop a lot of other services,” said Suellen Richardson, a registered nurse who is assistant vice president of the Georgia Heart Center. “The biggest benefit to patients is the consolidation of the services that currently are scattered throughout the hospital. Waiting times will be significantly reduced.”