ChristianaCare puts cath, ablation and device implants into a $9.3M cardiovascular ASC
A three-way joint venture will build a 9,000-square-foot cardiovascular surgery center in Newark, Delaware, projecting roughly 10,800 outpatient heart and vascular procedures a year in New Castle County by 2029.
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ChristianaCare, Cardiovascular Physicians of Delaware and US Health Partners are forming a joint venture to build a cardiovascular ambulatory surgery center in Newark, Delaware, the partners announced April 17, 2026. The project carries a $9.3 million cost estimate for a 9,000-square-foot center on the second floor of the HealthCare Center at Christiana, across from Christiana Hospital.
The named service line is what makes this notable. Per the release, “services will include diagnostic heart catheterizations, coronary and peripheral vascular interventions, ablation procedures, pacemaker/implantable defibrillator implantations and other minimally invasive cardiovascular procedures” — the same kind of work that has historically lived in the hospital. The JV projects roughly 10,800 outpatient heart and vascular procedures a year in New Castle County by 2029, against more than 24,000 across the broader region, and cites ASC procedures costing 30 to 40 percent less than the same care in hospitals. The center is expected to open in late 2027 and is projected to create 14 full-time jobs. Atlas Healthcare Partners — which formed an ASC joint venture with ChristianaCare in 2024 to build a Mid-Atlantic surgery-center network — will manage and operate the center.
The timing tracks a federal door that just opened. CMS’s CY2026 OPPS/ASC final rule added cardiac catheter ablation to the ASC Covered Procedures List effective January 1, 2026 — a move cardiology societies had pushed for years. That makes Newark an early concrete test of whether the procedures CMS now pays for in an ASC actually migrate there at scale.
“For patients, this is about getting the right care, in the right place, at the right time,” said Brian Sarter, M.D., president of Cardiovascular Physicians of Delaware. ChristianaCare Chief Physician Executive Kert Anzilotti, M.D., framed it as a capacity play: shifting outpatient heart care out of the hospital lets the system reserve inpatient resources “for patients who need complex or urgent cardiac services.”