On Thursday, Methodist Hospitals held a seminar at their Southlake Campus in Merrillville which introduced patients to a new, innovative piece of cardiovascular technology called CardioMEMS. Methodist Hospitals is the first in the region to offer the device to those over the age of 65 who are suffering from heart failure or the potential signs and symptoms.
Heart failure can be caused by a range of issues or illnesses including: CAD (coronary artery disease), hypertension, and diabetes; and some symptoms can be weight gain, swelling, fatigue, or loss of appetite. For people over 70, heart failure is the most common reason for hospitalizations, and over the next fifteen years, the costs associated with an individual's admission or readmission to the hospital is expected to double, to $70 billion dollars a year.
When a patient is diagnosed with heart failure a doctor can prescribe medications, monitor blood pressure and weight, or recommend cardiac resynchronization therapy. How these treatments are working for patients is normally only monitored through doctors’ appointments or, unfortunately, through hospitalizations after symptoms become too severe to for the patient to bear. This is where CardioMEMS comes in.
CardioMEMS allows doctors to monitor how these treatment measures are working through a sensor implanted in the pulmonary artery in the heart. By measuring and recording pressure in the pulmonary artery, which is a good indicator of improving or worsening conditions, and transmitting it back to a patient's doctor every day, doctors get a clearer, consistent picture of what’s really going on.
“Our goal is to prevent readmission of patients to hospitals,” said Dr. Andre Artis, CardioMEMS Implanting Physician at Methodist Hospitals. “As time goes by the body tries to compensate for the negative changes going on as a result of heart failure. If we can spot these changes before they become noticeable to the patient that will be phenomenal. Each hospitalization is a step on the road in the wrong direction and comes at a huge cost.”
Symptoms of heart failure tend to creep up slowly, so having these small, paperclip size devices present allows doctors to make sounder, informed treatment recommendations based on seeing a patient’s trends and measurements over a much shorter period of time.
The device has been available in other areas around the country and has reduced death rates in some places by up to 43%. The tiny device is implanted in a very simple procedure and contains no batteries or moving parts so there is minimal danger of complications or dislodging. Information is transmitted through an internal antenna to a receiving device in the patient’s home, then on to a secure website where doctors and healthcare providers can read the results and determine future changes in treatment.
To be a candidate for CardioMEMS patients must be over 65, diagnosed with heart failure and displaying symptoms, and have been hospitalized in the last year.
Patients no longer need to travel great distances to get the best possible treatments, and, as Dr. Artis put it, “Don’t underestimate what’s available right here in our communities.”