Recently, the MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute care team completed their 1,000th structural heart case using transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally invasive procedure that allows the aortic valve in the heart to be replaced with a new valve while the heart is still beating.
“To be part of such a monumental case with such an amazing team is a huge honor,” says David Shavelle, M.D., medical director, adult cardiology and interventional lab, MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center. “The fact that we can offer advanced treatment to our patients, giving them the best outcome possible, make moments and cases like this worth celebrating.”
These advanced cases result from the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center. The Structural Heart Program has a multidisciplinary team of specialists of cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, cardiovascular radiologists, and cardiac anesthesiologists that collaborate to provide the best cardiac care.
The team’s expertise is enhanced by the team’s access to leading medical technology, including a catheterization laboratory, which provides cardiologists with advanced imaging capabilities with the ability to see the heart from multiple perspectives. The team can treat the breadth of structural heart conditions like congenital heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, Marfan syndrome, Pericardial disease, and valvular heart disease in the most minimally invasive way possible. Helping patients recover faster with shorter hospital stays.
“Because of the multidisciplinary approach and access to advanced technology that gives us the ability to treat many cardiac conditions minimally invasively, we can help our patients get back home and return them to living their lives fully,” says Dr. Shavelle. “MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute is one of California’s most comprehensive centers for heart care. We offer the latest advanced technologies, like WATCHMAN, MitraClip, and TAVR, which are the gold standard in treating heart conditions.”
Many of the newest and best treatment opportunities and technologies that are available to MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute patients are because of leading-edge cardiac research. By providing medications, devices, and therapies to the community – long before they become available elsewhere –MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute gives patients the most advanced care close to home.
“We participate in research like the ARISE-study to improve the survival rates of in-hospital cardiac arrest, the RESTORE-1 study to help patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), and more,” says Dr. Shavelle. “We participate in the most scientifically sound protocols in cardiovascular research and are dedicated to offering patients the latest treatment options available.”
Because of the expertise and advanced care provided to patients, MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center has been recognized by Healthgrades as a Five-Star Recipient for treatment of heart failure, and by U.S. News & World Report as a ‘High-Performing Hospital’ for heart attack and aortic valve surgery.
