Raleigh General Hospital took a giant stride this week toward moving into the realm of angioplasty service with revised language by the Health Care Authority changing the term “drive time” to “medical transport time.”

A basic principle governing heart service is that anyone within an hour of a hospital approved for the cardiac treatment must go to that facility.

Raleigh General Hospital and others protested that no one could possibly drive from its parking lot to Charleston Area Medical Center in an hour, given the procession of traffic lights in Kanawha City, and that the rule failed to consider adverse weather conditions that could slow travel.

It was Raleigh General’s position that the one-hour standard must consider the entire trip — from the moment a patient arrives with a heart problem to the point the ambulance reaches CAMC.

Gov. Joe Manchin agreed the rule was ambiguous, so the HCA sent him a revised one this week, now defining the term as “medical transport time.”

And by that, HCA emphasized it means “The time from when the referring facility initiates contact with the receiving facility which provides primary and elective PCI regarding the transfer of a patient with the diagnosis of ST segment elevation or new left bundle branch block to the time the patient arrives at the receiving facility, including the actual transport time.”

Karen Bowling, chief executive officer of Raleigh General, applauded the rewrite Friday, saying, “That is what it should have been to begin with.”

“We, of course, are very happy that the language has been changed,” Bowling said. “It makes sense to us. We believe that needed to be in place.”

Bowling said the Beckley facility would file a letter of intent to provide the cardiac catheterization. That done, the hospital then will fill out an application, possibly to be submitted in September, she said.

Just when the HCA would rule on its request is difficult to say, Bowling noted.

An application could be delayed if an affected party asks for a hearing.

“We will need to recruit two interventional cardiologists to perform those procedures here, and that part of the process takes a period of time, too,” Bowling said. “No physician is going to want to come here unless they know we can have approval to do it.”

Without question, the service is critical to this area, and, if approved, Raleigh General would be in position to serve a large swath of southern West Virginia, she said.

“It’s clearly a needed service when you just look at the number of patients that we transport out of the area,” Bowling said. “It’s going to be an asset to the community, and it’s certainly going to save lives.”

Bowling pointed out that HealthNet this week announced plans to move its base of operations to Beckley.

“It all goes together if you think about it,” she said. “This is sort of the hub of providing health care services. We’re very excited about it.”

Manchin has 30 days in which to rule on the revised rule, according to his communications director, Lara Ramsburg.

“We have received the new rules and hope to make a decision as soon as possible,” she said.

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com