Heart and Vascular

Our Next Heartbeat is for You

As a recipient of the Mission: Lifeline Gold Award, Forrest Health's Heart and Vascular Services proudly delivers expert heart and vascular care from board-certified cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons and vascular surgeons.

Depending on your health needs, you could benefit from heart and vascular services such as:

• Cardiac rehabilitation
• Diagnostic Cardiology Testing
• Echocardiography
• Electrophysiology
• Heart surgery
• Interventional cardiology
• Structural heart treatment
• Vascular treatment

Dedicated areas for our heart and vascular patients include:

• Cardiac catheterization laboratory
• Heart surgery suites
• Endovascular surgery suite
• Telemetry units
• Critical care areas

Heart Care in Your Hometown

Care and treatment through Forrest Health is available at Forrest General Hospital, Highland Community Hospital, The Heart Care Center in Laurel and a cardiology outreach clinic throughout the Pine Belt.

We combine the latest technology with the experience and compassion of our heart and vascular specialists to give your heart the care it needs.

Recognized for excellence in Life-Saving Heart Care

Over the years, Forrest Health has continued to lead the Pine Belt and build on our experience to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care that has earned us many awards and recognitions :

• Forrest General Hospital has received the American College of Cardiology’s NCDR Chest Pain MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2025. Forrest General is one of only 323 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.
• The American Heart Association presented Get With the Guidelines – Coronary Artery NSTEMI Gold award and Bronze STEMI Receiving Center award for implementation of quality treatment and care coordination for heart attack patients, as well as Type 2 diabetes care.
• Forrest General was honored with Mission: Lifeline achievement award for implementing quality measures for the treatment of heart attacks.

Diagnosis and Screening

The first step in your heart treatment is diagnostic tests and screening. With many options to choose from to give you the most accurate diagnosis, you can trust our team of cardiologists to identify your heart issues. These tests are most often done in Hattiesburg at Forrest General's Cardiac Cath Lab, but some may be performed in our cardiology clinics throughout the Pine Belt and South Mississippi.

These tests help your cardiologist determine next steps and create a plan to manage your heart disease — such as medicine, other interventional procedures or surgery.

The following diagnostic procedures are performed at the Forrest General Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab:

• Angiogram
• Cardiac MRI
• Echocardiogram
• Electrophysiology studies
• Insertable cardiac monitor
• Tilt-table testing
• Transesophogeal echocardiogram

Are You At Risk for Heart Disease?

About half of Americans have at least one of three main risk factors for heart disease—high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking. Other medical conditions and lifestyle choices can also put people at higher risk for heart disease, including:

• Diabetes
• Overweight and obesity
• Poor diet
• Physical inactivity
• Excessive alcohol use
• Family history of heart disease

Knowing your risk for heart disease can help you decide if you need to modify your lifestyle to control risk factors and help yourself and your loved ones enjoy long, productive and healthy lives. Small changes can make a big difference in your heart health.