By Erica Zucco
The New Mexico Heart Institute and the Heart Hospital of New Mexico at Lovelace Medical Center have partnered together to pioneer the implantation of new heart monitoring devices in heart failure patients. They expect it will make a huge difference for heart failure patients in New Mexico – and their families.
They’re called CardioMEMS, and on Aug. 3 and 4, doctors from the New Mexico Heart Institute implanted them in five different patients at the Heart Hospital of New Mexico at Lovelace Medical Center.
"We'll have the ability to monitor them from their house in real time every day of the week and there's really never been anything like that before," said Dr. Sean Mazer of the New Mexico Heart Institute.
The CardioMEMS monitors a heart failure patient’s artery pressure and heart rate, then sends data back to doctors over the Internet so they can adjust medications before a patient shows clinical symptoms.
"It should result in less clinic visits, less hospital visits and less symptoms overall, so I think it should be a dramatic improvement in their quality of life," Dr. Mazer said.
It takes one to two hours to implant. The patient should feel nothing as the doctor puts a catheter through a vein in their leg up to their heart, positioned through the help of an X-ray.
Dr. Mazer says introducing the CardioMEMS could make a huge difference for many New Mexicans.
"Any patient who has symptoms on a daily basis and has been in the hospital in the last year is a candidate for having this device implanted," Mazer said. "Heart failure is still the leading killer of human beings in the United States, so there's a huge number of patients that would qualify for this."
Dr. Mazer says clinical trials showed a 50 percent reduction in hospitalization rates for patients with the device.
See the original story, and video, here.