The Advanced Heart Failure, Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at Rush provides comprehensive, state-of-the-art care for patients with heart failure.

At Rush, patients are treated with great skill, sensitivity and innovation. The program's multidisciplinary team includes heart failure and heart transplant cardiologists and transplant surgeons, as well as immunologists, psychologists, social workers and dietitians to produce the best possible patient outcomes.

Working together, specialists at Rush create individualized treatment plans to treat heart failure and its underlying causes. A wide range of medical and surgical options are available at Rush.

Medication therapy - Cardiologists at Rush have the expertise to effectively treat many patients using various types of medications:

• ACE inhibitors can improve symptoms and survival by reducing the heart's workload
• Beta blockers can improve symptoms and survival by improving the heart's pumping function
• Diuretics reduce swelling and breathing difficulties by helping to remove more sodium and water from the body

Heart devices - A variety of tools are available at Rush to help patients with heart problems:

• Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) monitor heart rhythms and deliver shocks to stop life-threatening rhythms when they are detected
• Left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) help maintain blood circulation while patients await heart transplant
• Pacemakers resynchronize the pumping action of the heart

Surgery - Since Rush began its transplant program in 1994, the team has performed nearly 200 transplants with survival rates that meet or exceed national benchmarks. Surgeries performed at Rush for patients with heart failure include the following:

• Coronary artery bypass
• Heart transplants
• Heart valve replacement
• Procedures to alter the size and shape of the heart

Guidance and Support

Rush is committed to supporting patients and their families before, during and after a heart transplant. As part of the heart transplant team, a transplant social worker helps patients and their families cope with the challenges related to transplant whether they be emotional or financial, and any other needs to help ease the stress of the process.

To help recovery after a transplant, a registered dietitian works with patients and their families to manage dietary needs and limitations.

Advancing MedicineThrough Research

At Rush, doctors are researchers as well as clinicians. The Advanced Heart Failure, Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program actively participates in advanced drug and device studies to bring the latest therapies directly to their patients.

Investigators are currently studying new heart failure drugs, such as improved inotropic agents to help the heart function more efficiently and vasopressin receptor antagonists to help eliminate the excess water associated with heart failure.

It takes more than gifted cardiologists and great heart surgeons to make all of this possible. That's why patients of the Heart Failure and Heart Transplant Program at Rush receive care from a team of experts. Immunologists. Dietitians. Social workers. Psychologists. And nurses so good, they've achieved Magnet status, the highest honor a hospital can achieve for nursing services.