CardioMEMS - St. Joseph's Health

St. Joseph’s Health is now offering a new implantable, wireless monitoring sensor to manage heart failure (HF). The Abbott CardioMEMS™ HF System is the first and only FDA-approved heart failure monitoring device that has been clinically proven to significantly reduce hospital admissions when used by physicians to manage heart failure.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Heart Failure Society of American (HFSA), nearly six million Americans are living with heart failure, and 670,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

Heart failure is a chronic debilitating condition that worsens over time. Typically, heart failure is caused by heart damage from a heart attack, longstanding untreated high blood pressure, valvular heart disease and other forms of heart disease that leads to fluid accumulation in the lungs. Birth defects also can also play a role. Left untreated, the lack of adequate blood flow causes the organs to progressively fail, resulting in numerous medical complications that erode a person’s quality of life and often leads to death.

How The CardioMEMs device WORKS

The CardioMEMS™ HF System provides pulmonary artery (PA) pressure remote monitoring using a small sensor. Permanently implanted in the distal pulmonary artery via a safe right heart catheterization procedure, the sensor measures changes in pulmonary artery pressure. These changes can fortell worsening fluid retention in the lungs and thereby causing an episode of heart failure.

Patient-initiated sensor readings, taken daily from their homes, are wirelessly transmitted to a secure website for clinicians to access and review. Directly monitoring PA pressure not only alerts your provider if a patient’s heart failure is worsening, it also allows your provider to intervene earlier, adjusting medication or making other treatment changes, often before the patient experiences any symptoms.

Who is a candidate for CardioMEMS?

The CardioMEMS remote monitoring system is approved for patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class III heart failure (defined as inabilities to perform activities of daily living without symptoms) AND who have been hospitalized for heart failure in the previous year.

For referrals, please enter an Ambulatory Referal through EPIC.