Heart Failure and Transplant

Cardiac rehab provides exercise training, education in heart-healthy living, and counseling to lower stress. It can stabilize, slow and sometimes reverse heart failure progression.

If you’re diagnosed with heart failure, your doctor may recommend:

• Avoiding alcohol and caffeine
• Avoiding tight socks or stockings
• Being physically active
• Developing a social support system
• Eating a low-sodium, low-fat diet
• Getting appropriate vaccinations (like flu or pneumonia)
• Getting sufficient rest
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Managing stress
• Monitoring blood pressure
• Quitting smoking
• Tracking daily fluid intake

Depending on your needs, your doctor might prescribe:

• Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitor: Lowers blood pressure and decreases the heart’s workload
  • Angiotensin Receptor Blocker: Lowers blood pressure
  • Angiotensin-Receptor Neprilysin Inhibitor (ARNI): Improves artery opening and blood flow, reduces sodium retention and decreases strain on the heart
  • Beta-Blockers: Lower blood pressure and slow your heart rate
  • Digoxin: Helps your heart pump better
  • Diuretics: Help rid the body of extra water and sodium
  • Vasodilator: Lowers blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels, allowing them to open

We offer many procedures for heart failure, including minimally invasive, traditional surgeries and heart transplants.

Minimally Invasive Heart Procedures

If we can avoid open-heart surgery, we do. We continuously seek new, less-invasive heart surgery technologies. Many minimally invasive procedures, like MitraClip and TAVR, require only a small incision, leading to less scarring and a quicker recovery.

MitraClip^®

MitraClip may be an option if you have a leaky heart valve (mitral regurgitation) and aren’t suitable for traditional surgery. This procedure usually involves a catheter inserted through a large groin vein. It is much less invasive than open-heart surgery, causing less scarring and a shorter recovery.

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR)

Your doctor may recommend TAVR if your aortic valve is damaged or diseased. This procedure lets your valve be replaced rather than removed, offering a safe option if surgery isn’t right for you.

Percutaneous Interventions

Percutaneous interventions are nonsurgical procedures on a beating heart. Instead of open-heart surgery, special tools go through a small groin opening. Advanced heart failure patients unsuited for surgery may benefit from a percutaneous procedure.

Surgical Procedures

Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT)

CRT uses a pacemaker to regulate heart contractions. It’s recommended when your heart’s electrical signals are disrupted.

CardioMEMS™ HF System

The CardioMEMS HF System is an implanted device that lets a cardiologist monitor your pressure readings remotely to help prevent heart failure episodes and hospitalizations. The pressure sensor is placed in the pulmonary artery during an outpatient procedure, which is covered by most insurance plans.

Heart Transplant*

You may be a heart transplant candidate if other heart failure treatments haven’t succeeded. In a heart transplant, surgeons remove your diseased heart and replace it with a healthy donor heart after all other treatment options have been explored. This procedure can restore hope for an active, independent life.

We’ll work with the AdventHealth Transplant Institute during your evaluation for eligibility. If you qualify, a transplant team decides and informs your coordinator and doctor. Once insurance approves, you’re placed on a national organ donor waitlist. When a matching donor is found, you’ll be contacted to prepare for transplant.

*This specialty care is currently available in Florida only.