Page 7 - PMCC on the Globe and Mail - 2016 Edition

5

things you didn’t
know about

the Peter Munk
Cardiac Centre

1 The Peter Munk 2 State-of-the-art 3 Stent grafts that 4 The PMCC is 5 In 2017, the PMCC
will be the first
Cardiac Centre remote patient repair life-threatening participating health-care program
in the world equipped
(PMCC), part of monitoring provides aortic aneurysms in national and with next-generation
medical-grade
University Health real-time treatment are hand-sewn by a international quality- holographic imaging
technology.
Network (UHN) in information to company in Australia assessment databases
Holograms aren’t just
Toronto, cares for patients with heart and then sent by to measure and being used to bring old
musicians back from
the largest group of failure. courier to Toronto. benchmark patient the dead for one last
show. Hospitals are also
patients in the world Patients with heart failure People who have an aortic care. It’s the first starting to use them.
need to be managed aneurysm may need a In 2017, the PMCC will
who were born with constantly, which is stent put inside this vessel centre in Canada begin using a device,
hard to do when they’re – the major artery coming made by a company in
heart disease and are at home. Technological from their heart – to to do this for every Haifa, Israel, that will
innovation, though, prevent it from rupturing. allow a patient’s beating
over the age of 18. has made real-time “It’s like putting in a aspect of cardiac and heart to float in space, in
monitoring a reality. new pipe inside of a real time. Doctors will
More than 90 per cent In tandem with the rusted-out old pipe,” vascular care. be able to see a life-sized
of children born with University Health says Dr. Rubin. But it’s a image of the heart that
heart disease become Network and the Ted complicated procedure As of this year, the PMCC they can move around
adults who require highly Rogers Centre for Heart because everyone needs is sharing its data with a and look inside. This is
specialized care. These Research, the PMCC has something a little number of national and groundbreaking, says Dr.
patients could be born led the development of a different, depending on international databases in Rubin. Doctors will be
with holes in their hearts proprietary technology their individual anatomy. order to see how it stacks able to essentially perform
or major blood vessels that connects the patient’s To do this properly, up against other health- surgical procedures, like
that are not connected home scale and a blood stents often need to be care facilities. It wants a valve replacement with
in the usual way and pressure cuff to their customized, and the best to see if there are areas no incision, in the air, by
need regular attention smartphone. If a patient way to do that is to sew where improvements looking at the hologram,
throughout their lives. gains weight – which is them by hand, just like could be made. Sharing while the patient is asleep.
Every year, the PMCC critical to watch for, as one would sew a sock or data has helped in the They’ll be able to see the
takes in about 600 weight gain can be a sign a scarf. The PMCC works past. In one database, valve in the image and
patients who were born of worsening heart failure with Australian company the PMCC found that 75 make sure it’s inserted
with heart problems. – the smartphone will Cook Medical to produce per cent of its patients exactly where it needs
About 300 come from generate an e-mail that’s these custom stents. were staying more than to go.
the Hospital for Sick sent to the patient, telling Nitinol, a nickel-titanium two days in hospital
Children (SickKids) the patient what he or she alloy, is sewn onto a after aortic aneurysm – Bryan Borzykowski
in Toronto, while 300 needs to do. It may tell synthetic fabric to create surgery, while 75 per cent
others arrive from other the patient to take a water a custom stent graft that of patients in the U.S. 5
parts of Canada and from pill, and it will direct the is based on the individual were only staying one
around the world. Due patient to call the doctor, patient’s aortic anatomy, day. The PMCC wanted
to this constant influx, as necessary. Once the which is evaluated by the to be more in line with
the PMCC’s health-care patient makes the call, pre-operative CT scan. its peers, so it made a
professionals manage he or she can quickly be number of changes to the
the largest population assessed, and additional way it operates. Now, 80
of patients in the world treatment can start right per cent of patients go
born with heart problems away. This may prevent home the next day after
who are now over 18 years patients with heart failure aneurysm surgery.
of age. “We really have from deteriorating and
to be super-specialized needing to go to the
to be able to deal with emergency room.
this patient population,”
says Dr. Barry Rubin,
Medical Director of the
PMCC. “The vast majority
of doctors would not
routinely manage these
patients.”

Winter 2017