Heart failure is a chronic disease that requires lifelong management — and regular care from experienced specialists.
Nuvance Health offers comprehensive, individualized heart failure diagnosis, treatment and support. Your doctors address underlying causes of heart failure to slow its progression. We want to help you live longer and better, and your care team is with you every step of the way.
Diagnosis for Heart Failure
We use advanced cardiovascular imaging and testing tools to help us accurately diagnose heart failure.
Treatment for Heart Failure
Your treatment plan may include more than one type of therapy. These may include heart medicine, interventional cardiology, heart surgery and advanced assistive devices.
Medicine for heart failure
Your doctor may prescribe one or more types of heart medicine, including:
- Aldosterone antagonists help you urinate more often while sparing potassium, a mineral that helps your body work properly. These drugs may help people with severe systolic heart failure live longer.
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors widen blood vessels to lower blood pressure, improve blood flow and decrease the workload on the heart.
- Angiotensin II receptor blockers may be an alternative for people who can’t tolerate ACE inhibitors.
- Beta-blockers slow your heart rate and reduce blood pressure. Beta blockers may also limit or reverse damage caused by systolic heart failure.
- Diuretics (water pills) make you urinate more often to limit fluid buildup in your body. Diuretics also reduce fluid in your lungs so you can breathe more easily.
- Infusion therapy sends medication directly into your bloodstream to control heart failure symptoms.
- Positive inotropes change the strength of your heart’s contraction to treat severe heart failure so you can feel better and stay out of the hospital. You receive inotropes through a vein (intravenously).
- Sacubitril/valsartan is a combination of two medications that treats some types of heart failure. The drugs relax blood vessels so blood can flow more easily, making it easier for your heart to pump blood to your body.
- SGLT2 inhibitors are a type of medication that can help lower blood sugar in adults who have heart failure and type 2 diabetes. They block filtered glucose (sugar) from being reabsorbed, which can help prevent heart failure from worsening.
Interventional cardiology for heart failure
The interventional cardiology team uses a small, thin tube (catheter) to perform minimally invasive heart failure procedures such as:
Surgery for heart failure
Severe heart failure may require one or more types of heart surgery, including:
- Coronary bypass surgery bypasses a severely blocked artery in your heart to restore blood flow.
- Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) bypasses the blocked portion of the artery with a piece of a healthy blood vessel from elsewhere in your body.
- Heart valve repair surgically modifies the original heart valve—such as repairing valve tightness or replacing the ring around the valve (annuloplasty).
- Heart valve replacement is used to replace a damaged valve with an artificial (prosthetic) valve when repair isn’t possible.
Device therapy for heart failure
Your doctor may recommend a device to help you manage heart failure over time, including:
- CardioMEMS HF System monitors symptoms to reduce hospital readmissions and improve quality of life for patients with severe heart failure.
- Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) are implanted in your chest to monitor and regulate your heart rhythm by delivering electrical impulses.
- Implantable heart failure monitors track your heart’s activity and notify you of any warning signs.
- Pacemakers are small devices implanted in the chest that send electrical signals to start or regulate a slow heartbeat.
- Biventricular pacemakers pace both ventricles at once to increase the amount of blood the heart pumps (called cardiac resynchronization therapy).
Assistive devices for heart failure
Your heart may need more help to pump blood, including:
- Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) pumps oxygen into your blood, allowing your heart and lungs to rest as you heal.
- Ventricular assist devices (VADs) use mechanical pumps attached to the heart and implanted in the abdomen or chest. A VAD helps pump blood from your heart’s lower chambers of (ventricles) to the rest of your body.
Other support services for heart failure
- Home care support services provide tailored care and disease management for congestive heart failure.
- Hospice cardiac care offers skilled, compassionate care for untreatable disease at your home, nursing facility or hospital to improve quality of life.