In what amounts to a coup in the medical world, Providence Health Center unveiled a new piece of heart equipment Friday that has only been installed at six other hospitals across the globe.

The machine, which assists doctors in performing certain types of cardiac procedures, such as angioplasty, is making Providence the envy of the nation's most prestigious hospitals. Dozens of highly regarded institutions are on a waiting list for the equipment, including Massachusetts General Hospital and Houston's Methodist Hospital.

"It's very exciting that here in Waco we'll have the opportunity to utilize this new technology and participate in the development of new technology," said cardiologist Dr. Albert Shoultz III. "It's such a dramatic change in how we've approached interventional cardiology. We hope this technology, as it matures, will allow us to do things we haven't traditionally been able to do. It's a unique and very rare opportunity for a community our size."

The equipment, called the Niobe Magnetic Navigation System, is at the cutting edge of science, Providence officials say. Currently, it has two uses. One is for so-called coronary intervention applications, or procedures that help with structural problems of the heart such as blocked arteries. Its other application involves electrophysiology, which deals with the heart's rhythms.

So far, only one other hospital in the world has one of the machines used for coronary intervention, and only four other U.S. hospitals and one in Europe have a machine that can perform the electrophysiology tasks.

Providence was able to obtain the machine, which can do both sets of tasks, because of its affiliation with Ascension Health, the largest network of nonprofit hospitals in the nation. One of Ascension's divisions is a company called Ascension Health Venture, which scours the world for emerging technologies the hospital system thinks are worthy of supporting.

Dr. Joe Cunningham, chief medical officer of Providence Medical Network, is vice chairman of the venture group. Providence President and CEO Kent A. Keahey is also on the board.

The venture group decided to invest in the company that produces the machine, St. Louis-based Stereotaxis, when the federal Food and Drug Administration approved the equipment for commercial use in January. Since then, Ascension has built a strong relationship with the company, and that bond — along with Cunningham's and Keahey's involvement — was enough to land Providence the new machine.

The price tag for the technology was $1.9 million, Keahey said, but he stressed that the cost will not be passed on to patients by way of increased fees. Providence included the cost in its capital budget for the year, he said, adding that the hospital was about to replace its electrophysiology lab soon anyway.

For all the prestige that accompanies the new equipment, it resembles a souped-up video game system. Doctors use a joystick to navigate medical devices like stents through a patient's body, and three-dimensional images of the heart are displayed on flat-screen monitors.

The process starts when a patient lies down on a table that is part of the machine. Then, two computer-controlled magnets that weigh more than two tons each are moved into position at the sides of the table to create a magnetic field within the lab.

Once the magnets are in place, cardiologists use the joystick to guide a device that is inserted through the groin to where they want it to go in the heart. As soon as the physician clicks on the screen, a tiny magnet attached to the end of the device moves the device instantaneously.

Before the machine was installed, the process of getting devices to the heart was tedious, with physicians having to manually "thread" them all the way from the groin to the heart. Sometimes, it was even impossible if patients' arteries were curved or oddly shaped. In those cases, which arose about 20 percent of the time, doctors often had to resort to invasive surgeries like coronary bypass.

The new equipment could eliminate the need for most patients to undergo such surgeries because it allows physicians to reach areas of the heart they couldn't before, Cunningham said. Even for the other 80 percent of patients where navigating the device was not an issue, there will be improvements, he said. The main one is speed. Already, the hospital has used the machine to perform procedures in about five minutes that would have taken 60 to 90 minutes before, he said.

That efficiency, in turn, makes the procedure safer because the risk of problems, such as infection, decreases as the process becomes shorter, Cunningham said.

"We are aiming for safer, better, faster," said Charlotte Kent, area director for Stereotaxis.

Another exciting aspect of the equipment is that its technology can likely be adapted for procedures in other parts of the body, Cunningham said. For example, if someone had a liver tumor, doctors might be able to use the machine to maneuver a device that would go down to the tumor and release a dose of chemotherapy. Eventually, it might also be used to treat brain blockages and tumors, he said.

What's even more thrilling, said Providence officials, is that the hospital will be at the forefront of developing new applications. In connection with the installation of the equipment, the hospital and Stereotaxis have a research agreement in which Providence employees will help pioneer new uses for the technology.

Largely because of that new relationship, Providence also announced Friday that it has created the M. Brian Aynesworth Research Center. It is named after a longtime Waco cardiologist who died in 1982.

Providence has been conducting research since the mid-1980s, said director of cardiology Debbie Kucera. But the new center will be an official department of the hospital, giving more focus to the research, she said. Initially, it will be staffed by two employees.

"No longer will Providence be the first to simply make available current medical therapies," Kucera said. "We will soon be involved in the design and formation of medical science for the rest of the industry to follow."

Cunningham said that having more of a research emphasis may bring new treatments to Central Texas. It is also sure to attract the best doctors and staff in the nation, he said.

"These are the types of things people travel to places like the Mayo Clinic and Boston for," Cunningham said. "Any bright, young gunner is going to be excited about it. The kind of people we want to be on the front lines."