Heart Care Answers

Heart disease is the number one killer in America.

If you live in the Philadelphia region and you need heart surgery there you have many options, particularly on the Pennsylvania side of the river. In South Jersey three hospitals – Cooper University Hospital, Deborah Heart and Lung Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center – offer open-heart surgery, while in Southeastern Pennsylvania 21 hospitals offer open-heart surgery.

So, if you need heart surgery and you have time to choose, how do you decide where to go? Certainly, you need to talk to your doctor, ask questions of prospective surgeons, and get advice from those you trust. An interactive database that is part of a special report – Matters of the Heart – by The Inquirer and The Daily News can help inform that decision as well.