Pitt County Memorial Hospital adopts TandemHeart®—versatile circulatory support device from CardiacAssist

“The TandemHeart is the only percutaneous rescue therapy available for patients in refractory cardiogenic shock who are too unstable to receive long-term implantable assist devices immediately.” (Source: Tex Heart Inst J. 2008; 35(2): 125-129)

GREENVILLE, N.C. & PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CardiacAssist Inc. announced today that Pitt County Memorial Hospital has adopted the company’s TandemHeart® System.

“Many great hospitals such as Pitt County Memorial are becoming aware of the significant benefits of TandemHeart for their cardiac patients, which is why we believe that TandemHeart is destined to become standard of care in extracorporeal circulatory support.”

Pitt County Memorial Hospital is in select company: TandemHeart is now being used in nearly 90% of the “Best U.S. Heart & Heart Surgery Hospitals” as ranked by U.S. News & World Report—with more than 1,900 TandemHeart procedures performed to date at nearly 150 hospitals across the United States.

“We pride ourselves in being a state-of-the-art cardiac care facility,” said interventional cardiologist Walter A. Tan, M.D. “Therefore we are very proud to be one of the first cardiac centers in North Carolina to offer this important new life-saving technology to our cardiac patients.”

FDA-cleared TandemHeart can be placed rapidly by both interventional cardiologists in a cath lab and by cardiac surgeons in an operating room to provide short-term circulatory support to patients requiring additional cardiac assistance. The device provides effective and reliable temporary circulatory support for critically ill patients. Hemodynamic support includes a high net blood-flow rate of up to five liters per minute in the catheterization lab or up to eight liters per minute in the OR—more than twice the amount of other available technologies—and is fully reimbursed by Medicare under existing DRG codes.

“TandemHeart establishes a whole new paradigm for treating cardiac patients quickly and aggressively,” said Michael Garippa, CEO and President of CardiacAssist. “Many great hospitals such as Pitt County Memorial are becoming aware of the significant benefits of TandemHeart for their cardiac patients, which is why we believe that TandemHeart is destined to become standard of care in extracorporeal circulatory support.”

About CardiacAssist

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, privately held CardiacAssist is a growing and profitable medical technology company that develops, manufactures and markets cardiac assist devices. The Company has developed the world’s first and only proprietary platform, FDA-cleared and CE-Marked TandemHeart®—which provides a short-term extracorporeal circulatory support system for both cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.