September 14th 2020 – Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center reported tha it is the first hospital in Palm Beach County to perform a heart procedure with the Impella 5.5™ with Smart Assist®, a new technology to enable heart recovery in patients whose hearts are too weak to effectively pump blood on their own after a heart attack. Cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Nishant Patel, is the first surgeon at the hospital to use the device for a procedure.
The Impella 5.5 with SmartAssist is a heart pump that is temporarily implanted minimally invasively in a patient’s heart. It reduces the heart’s workload and oxygen demand, which enables the heart to rest and recover, supply much needed blood and oxygen to the patient’s other vital organs, and allow patients the ability to walk just 24 hours following surgery.
“This advanced technology gives us a new and potentially better option to treat patients who are very sick due to a heart attack,” said Teresa Urquhart, chief executive officer for Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center. “It is a minimally-invasive treatment option that enables a patient’s heart to rest and ultimately recover, improving the patient’s long-term quality of life compared to other therapies. This new technology furthers our commitment to providing patients in Palm Beach County with comprehensive cardiovascular treatment options.”
Impella 5.5 with SmartAssist integrates data informatics including left ventricular pressure (LVP), end-diastolic pressure (EDP) and cardiac power output (CPO) that can help physicians make treatment decisions. The SmartAssist fiberoptic pressure sensor allows for precise pump positioning, management and repositioning in the ICU. The technology also includes Impella Connect, which enables medical providers to view the Impella control screen through a secure feed, and easily track and review cases.
“Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is always a leading provider in cardiovascular care in Palm Beach County, and aims to provide the most advanced care to our patients,” said Dr. Nishant Patel, cardiothoracic surgeon for Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center. “Adding the Impella 5.5 with SmartAssist technology to our cardiovascular services means we can provide a new option to patients whose hearts are too weak to effectively pump blood on their own after a heart attack. This gives severely ill patients the best chance to recover and return home with a good long-term quality of life.”Impella 5.5 with SmartAssist is the newest Impella heart pump from Abiomed of Danvers, Massachusetts and is FDA approved as a therapy for cardiogenic shock for up to 14 days. The Impella platform of technologies is the most studied mechanical circulatory support platform in the history of the FDA with real world clinical data on more than 100,000 patients and more than 550 peer-reviewed publications.
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is a 199-bed acute care hospital serving the medical and healthcare needs of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast for over 50 years. The hospital was the first in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast to perform open-heart surgery and has since remained one of the area’s leading heart hospitals, having performed nearly 19,000 open-heart surgeries and more than 100,000 cardiac catheterizations to date.
The Heart & Vascular Institute at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center offers comprehensive cardiac care and advanced minimally-invasive procedures including Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR), MitraClip, and Watchman. The hospital is the first in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin County to adopt the minimally invasive convergent approach to treat patients with atrial fibrillation. The hospital’s outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program is designed for people recovering from a heart attack, coronary bypass or valve surgery, and angioplasty or stent procedures.
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center offers advanced orthopedic care to our community. Some of the services offered include: total joint replacements for hip, knee and shoulder, sports medicine, arthroscopy, podiatry, fracture management and inpatient/outpatient rehabilitation. In 2019, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center was the only hospital in the State of Florida to utilize the NAVIO robotic-assisted surgical system to perform total and partial knee replacements.
Additional services include an Advanced Certified Primary Stroke Center, diagnostic imaging, general and robotic surgery, an Epilepsy Program and 24-hour emergency care. Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center’s Emergency Department offers all private rooms and is equipped with technology to help increase patient comfort, reduce wait times and provide up-to-the-minute patient status, as well as immediate access to film-based radiological images, interpretations and related data. The hospital’s Epilepsy Program is the first of its kind in Palm Beach County to have a dedicated Epilepsy Monitoring Unit that is equipped with long-term video monitoring, a specialized form of an EEG for patients who suffer from seizures. The hospital acquired the da Vinci Xi Robotic Surgical System which can be used across a spectrum of minimally-invasive procedures such as cardiovascular, colorectal, general surgery, gynecology, urology and more.
The hospital was the recipient of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus from 2015 – 2020 and also was named a High Performance Hospital for Heart Failure in U.S. News and World Report’s 2020-2021 Best Hospitals. Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center was also named as the best heart center in Palm County from the Palm Beach Post 2020 Best of Palm Beach County Awards. For more information or for a complimentary physician referral, please call (833)-619-8831 or visit www.pbgmc.com.
