HealthWatch DOYLESTOWN TEAM COMPLETED 600TH TAVR
he team from Doylestown Health’s Woodall Center for Heart and Vascular Care recently completed the 600th Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure at Doylestown Hospital.TAVR is an advanced treatment option for patients with aortic stenosis. Doylestown Hospital physicians were among the first in the region to perform the innovative procedure to replace diseased heart valves in patients without open-heart surgery when they completed their first TAVR in late 2013. Calling the procedure “transformative” for the care of aortic stenosis patients, interventional cardiologist David Boland, MD has been with the team since the beginning of Doylestown Hospital’s TAVR program. “As the volumes for this procedure continue to grow, it has become the wave of the future,” says Dr. Boland. Doylestown Hospital uses a team approach to identifying and treating these patients.The team combines the expertise of cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists and a valve clinic coordinator, all working together to evaluate patients and develop personal treatment plans. “There is definitely a team commitment,” says Structural Heart Coordinator Jennifer Harrar, DNP, CRNP-BC. “Each individual is evaluated very thoroughly, and the patients are very closely followed.” During the TAVR procedure, the physician uses a catheter to thread the small collapsible heart valve through the femoral artery in the groin in most cases; if unable to use femoral access, the team
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evaluates alternative access.The physician puts the valve and its metal scaffolding precisely into place and the new valve functions like a healthy valve. The team performed the 600th TAVR procedure on February 3, 2022 for an 84-year-old female with aortic stenosis. She went home the next day, as is typical of most TAVR cases. “Patients typically feel better pretty quick – immediately after the procedure,” says Dr. Boland. Doylestown Hospital physicians have continued to perform an increasing number of TAVR procedures each year. In 2015, the team completed 34 procedures; in 2021, that number grew to 145.The 30day mortality rate is 0.7%, well below the national rate of 1.7%. “I think that speaks volumes to the way the program was initially set up and the quality controls that were instituted from the beginning,” Dr. Boland says. “With a collaborative approach of each team member working hand in glove with the others, the program has worked very well.” In addition to TAVR, the Structural Heart team offers MitraClip™, a catheter-based procedure for mitral valve repair; pacemaker lead extraction, and the Watchman implanted device, which provides patients with Atrial Fibrillation an alternative to blood thinners to help reduce the risk of stroke. Doylestown Health’s Woodall Center for Heart and Vascular Care is located at Doylestown Hospital, First Floor, 595 West State Street, Doylestown, PA. For more information visit www.doylestownhealth.org/service-lines/heart-and-vascular.