Innovation In the Works

Director Discusses Detailed Orchestration of Ramp Up for MitraClip Procedure

- TIM CRAIG

WHEN WINTER HAVEN HOSPITAL begins its innovative MitraClip procedure later this year, it will come at the end of a months-long communitywide campaign guided by the office of Hollie Hill, the Structural Heart and Valve Program Director.

“There are so many different moving parts when you’re ramping up a new procedure like this, it’s not as simple as you think,” Hill says.

The procedure helps reverse a condition called mitral regurgitation, which is leakage of the mitral valve each time the ventricle contracts. Since the valve doesn’t close tightly, the blood flows backward into the ventricle, causing, among other things, shortness of breath, a rapid heartbeat and, if severe enough, congestion. Previous treatments were either through medication, which did nothing to fix the root cause regurgitation or invasive heart surgery. The new procedure is minimally invasive and patients, on average, are able to go home within two days.

The procedure could be a benefit to 10 to 15 percent of the 65 and overpopulation within the hospital’s three-county coverage area, according to Hill. However, in order to reach those potential patients, there have been a lot of steps and months of work behind the scenes to get things ready, Hill explains.

“The first thing we did was get our physician team to go out for specific training,” Hill says. “The physicians also had some opportunity to go over to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater and observe some cases over there. We were also able to go to the Fort Myers facility and observe.”