Heart Failure Program

Depending on your condition, treatments might include medications, implanted devices or surgery. We also offer referrals to supportive services:

• Nutrition
• Outpatient intravenous (IV) infusions
• Palliative care
• Social work

Medications

Although heart failure is a chronic condition, medications often reduce symptoms and can improve your quality of life. Your doctor may prescribe any of these medications to manage heart failure:

• Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors help your heart pump more blood and reduce blood pressure.
• Angiotensin neprilysin inhibitors (ARNIs) reduce some of the damaging long-term effects of heart failure, such as increased blood pressure and hardening of your arteries.
• Beta blockers reduce blood pressure.
• Diuretics help your body eliminate excess fluids and salt that often build up as a result of heart failure.

Implantable Devices

These specialized devices can provide a number of benefits:

• Manage and monitor heart failure
• Regulate your heartbeat
• Pump blood
• Track your vital signs to improve treatment

BIDMC's Advanced Heart Failure Program offers several effective implantable devices to help manage heart failure:

• Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) — sends timed electrical impulses to the heart’s lower chambers to help them pump in a synchronized manner
• Durable ventricular assist device — fully implanted in your chest to help your heart pump blood
• Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) — detects life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) and corrects them by delivering a jolt of electricity
• MitraClip device — small, implanted device that stops leaking in the mitral valve
• Percutaneous ventricular assist device — temporary device that helps manage heart failure until you receive a more permanent implant 

Surgery

Our surgeons offer traditional, open and minimally invasive surgeries to treat heart failure. These cardiac surgeries can help improve symptoms of heart failure:

• Heart transplant — replaces a diseased heart with a donor heart
• Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) — open-heart surgery that bypasses a blocked artery
• Heart valve surgery — repairs defective or diseased heart valves:
  • Minimally invasive mitral valve repair improves the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. During this procedure, the surgeon implants a device called a MitraClip through a catheter. This device functions in place of the damaged mitral valve. The procedure helps alleviate feelings of fatigue or breathlessness that frequently result from a damaged mitral valve.

If you need to spend time in the hospital, the Advanced Heart Failure Program provides a dedicated inpatient unit for your care. Our expert cardiologists and cardiac surgeons staff the unit.

Registered nurses and nurse practitioners with specialized skills to care for heart failure conditions also support inpatient care.

Cardiac direct access (CDAc) units provide you immediate care for symptoms that aren’t life-threatening, such as chest pain and shortness of breath. This option allows you to bypass the emergency department and gives you direct access to an attending cardiovascular physician with less wait and expense.