Northeast Georgia Medical Center now has a device smaller than a dime that can help keep heart failure patients from being admitted to the hospital.
Approved in late May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the CardioMEMS HF System is a miniature, battery-free implantable sensor/monitor. A catheter delivery system deploys the sensor permanently within a pulmonary artery. The CardioMEMS system continuously measures the patient’s heart rate and artery pressures.
On October 19, Dr. Christopher Leach implanted the system in a patient for the first time at NGMC Gainesville.
“The CardioMEMS HF System is an innovative technology and has the ability to treat and improve the outcome for heart failure patients,” said Dr. Leach, an interventional cardiologist with The Heart Center of NGMC. “Once implanted, the wireless sensor sends pressure readings to a monitoring system. We are now able to get real numbers and measurements in real time.”
Heart failure is a disease that leaves patients in a dangerous state, in which symptoms can worsen at any time – usually resulting in extended hospitalization. The CardioMEMS system allows a patient’s cardiologist to monitor their symptoms both day and night.
“When a patient has increased artery pressures, it’s the first sign that there is an abnormality,” says Brenda Hott, MD, medical director of Heart Failure at NGMC. “If those symptoms are detected when it is happening, we can change the patient's care plan and therapy – which thereby reduces the likelihood that they would progress to requiring hospitalization."
