Article preview from Start-Up - June, 2013
The most prevalent kind of heart failure is caused by heart attack damage to the left ventricle, and the standard treatment is an open-heart procedure called surgical ventricular restoration. BioVentrix Inc. aims to replace SVR with a less invasive version of the procedure, using its Revivent Myocardial Anchoring System, designed to pull the damaged segments of the left ventricle together to reduce the burden on the non-damaged myocardium and improve its performance.
Article preview from Start-Up - June, 2013
Heart failure patients have notoriously high hospital readmission rates. In the US, HF is a top DRG, with an annual inpatient cost to the health care system estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Small wonder, then, that it is one of the targets of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program mandated by the Affordable Care Act. CMS now provides lowered reimbursement to providers that exceed preset thresholds for rebounding Medicare HF patients, even those initially hospitalized for other reasons. BioVentrix Inc. is one of many device companies developing technologies designed to help hospitals and other providers cut down on the number of HF readmissions.
The most prevalent kind of heart failure is caused by heart attack damage to the left ventricle. Standard treatment is an open-heart procedure called surgical ventricular restoration (SVR). Patients with severe HF (New York Heart Association Class II or IV) are often considered too high-risk for SVR, in which multiple incisions are made in the left ventricle to remove the scar caused by the heart attack and reduce the enlarged, rounded heart. A concomitant cardiopulmonary bypass may also be required.
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