MountainView Hospital has achieved a distinguished 3-star ranking for its Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) program for its patient care and positive quality outcomes.
The 3-star ranking, which denotes the highest category of quality, comes from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American College of Cardiology, for the time period ending Sept. 2021. This ranking places MountainView Hospital among the elite for TAVR heart care in the United States and Canada, representing the top 4 to 8 percent of all centers, depending on procedure.
“MountainView Hospital takes great pride in the high-quality care we provide that has resulted in long-term positive results,” said Matthew Cova, MountainView’s interim Chief Executive Officer. “We are proud of our capabilities to serve this community with the most advanced technology and outstanding clinical teams.”
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, rating the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs across the United States and Canada. The star rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures.
“We are excited to be recognized among the top TAVR hospitals in the country. We continuously strive to stay on the leading front of quality and innovation to ensure the best possible outcomes, even for the most complex patients,” said Dr. Jeffrey Levisman, MountainView Hospital Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine and Director of the TAVR program.
The TAVR program and procedure at MountainView hospital is multidisciplinary, including MountainView’s cardiovascular surgeons, led by Dr. Deepak Malhotra, in addition to the hospital’s interventional cardiologists and the heart team.
Severe aortic stenosis is a narrowing of the aortic valve opening that does not allow normal blood flow. In elderly patients, severe aortic stenosis is sometimes caused by the build-up of calcium on the aortic valve’s leaflets. Over time the leaflets become stiff, reducing their ability to fully open and close. When the leaflets don’t fully open, the heart must work harder to push blood through the aortic valve to the body.
TAVR provides a unique option for patients to have a valve replacement without open heart surgery. It has become the primary approach to replace the valve for most patients with aortic valve stenosis.
This less invasive procedure allows a new valve to be inserted within the diseased aortic valve while the heart is still beating. Once the new replacement valve is expanded, it pushes the old valve out of the way and the replacement valve functions to regulate proper blood flow.