St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center

04/27/2026

Our remarkable Patient Experience team! We honor you on this Patient Experience Week. Thank you for all that you do for our patients! 💙💛💙💛

04/24/2026

“I am so happy you saved my dad’s life.”

8 year old Becky wrote a heartfelt letter to her father Richard’s surgeon, Dr. Gary Gecelter. Richard had been losing weight with no explanation. Dr. Gecelter discovered the cause and promptly operated on Richard. “…you finally fixed him. I want to tell everyone how amazing a doctor you are!” Read more about Becky and her father’s story -

https://www.catholichealthli.org/story/i-am-so-happy-you-saved-my-dads-life

04/24/2026

Dr. Evan Shlofmitz recently offered his expertise in the fourth installment of the New York Post’s “Pursuit of Wellness” series, which features commentary from Catholic Health experts. He shares guidance on heart-healthy nutrition – https://nypost.com/2026/04/22/health/7-foods-cardiologists-love-that-wont-bore-you-to-tears/

04/20/2026

04/17/2026

The BraveHearts of St. Francis Hospital, a cardiac support community dedicated to providing comfort and connection to individuals throughout their cardiac journeys, recently made a generous $25,000 donation to the Cardiology Innovation Research Fund. This meaningful gift honors the exceptional work of Dr. Richard Shlofmitz and the entire St. Francis Cardiology team, whose expertise, compassion, and dedication have impacted the lives of all of our BraveHearts members. In recognition of the recent Doctors’ Day, this contribution also serves as a heartfelt tribute to all of the physicians who not only save lives, but care for each patient with unwavering commitment and compassion. To learn more about the BraveHearts, please call (516) 562-6785.

04/17/2026

This week, cardiologists at St. Francis Hospital successfully performed the first global cases in the NAVIGATE-PCI registry. This innovation leverages the latest generation of HeartFlow’s AI technology for CT-guided intervention to support advanced cardiac imaging and procedural planning in the cath lab. Dr. Ziad Ali serves as the national principal investigator for the study, with Dr. Evan Shlofmitz as the local PI. Congratulations to our outstanding cath lab and cardiovascular imaging teams for making these first-in-human cases possible.

04/17/2026

Please consider donating blood next week 🙏

04/15/2026

St. Francis Hospital is the first in the tristate region to perform a TMVR (transcatheter mitral valve replacement) using the Edwards M3 device, recently approved by the FDA. This procedure is for patients who are high risk for open heart surgery with severe mitral valve disease. This is the first and currently only approved transseptal approach to mitral valve replacement. The innovative device uses an intricate docking and deployment mechanism to install the new valve. Congratulations to the team involved in this procedure – Drs. William Chung, George Petrossian, Jaffar Khan, Andrew Berke, Matthew Henry, Lin Wang, Sylvia Biso and Harminder Gil.

04/01/2026

In a recent FOX News Online story, Dr. Tereza Cristina Sardinha, chief of colon and re**al surgery at Catholic Health, explains that alcohol consumption increases one’s risk of developing multiple types of cancer.

Alcohol consumption may raise colore**al cancer risk, now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50, with experts warning of long-term effects.

04/01/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Allen Jeremias, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab, for his recent accomplishment as co-principal investigator in a study that has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, titled, “Angiography-Derived Fractional Flow Reserve to Guide PCI,” was presented as late breaking clinical trial at the ACC meeting and published in the NEJM. Dr. Jeremias explains, “St. Francis was instrumental in supporting the trial that evaluated a new technology assessing coronary physiology directly from the angiogram, as opposed to instrumenting the vessel. We are now using this routinely.”

Read more here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2600949