Heart and Vascular Premier Program

Heart and Vascular Care at Jefferson

We ask a lot of our hearts: The average human heart beats 100,000 times per day, pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood. No wonder, then, that when something goes wrong with your heart or blood vessels, it can profoundly affect your health and quality of life.

At Jefferson, you will receive nothing less than the best in heart and vascular care. Named a Top Hospital for Heart by Philadelphia magazine, the Jefferson Heart Institute was one of the first heart centers in the nation to implant stents to open blocked arteries. We are also designated as a Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care by Independence Blue Cross.

Jefferson physicians also work rigorously to help you change your behavior in order to prevent cardiac disease. We provide medical treatment so that you can better manage chronic diseases such as diabetes that may lead to heart disease.

Our noninvasive cardiovascular diagnostic testing laboratories utilize a wide variety of testing to help detect heart disease. These include transthoracic echocardiography (ultrasound), transesophageal echocardiography, 3-D cardiac echocardiography, stress tests, stress echocardiography testing, electrocardiography, dobutamine stress studies, cardiac CT and MRI, peripheral arteriography and stress-thallium studies.

At Jefferson, you can expect personalized, expert care, whether you have a common heart problem or a rare and complex cardiovascular disorder. Our renowned physicians provide the most advanced treatments for which we receive referrals and emergency transfers from other hospitals in the region. These treatments include percutaneous heart valve replacement, total mechanical heart, robotic heart valve replacement, ventricular assist devices (VADs), ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygen), ventricular remodeling, biventricular pacing, off-pump coronary bypass grafting, heart transplantation and an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) to stop life-threatening arrhythmias.

Jefferson Leads the Way in Cardiac Care

Jefferson is a world-class center for cardiovascular medicine and surgery, with a storied history of innovation.

• It is here that the first open heart surgery using the heart-lung machine in the U.S. was performed and that the technology enabling bypass surgery was invented.
• Our physicians have been using coronary stents for more than 25 years, which has helped prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes.
• Our physicians were the first in Pennsylvania to implant a Jarvik 2000® Heart Assist System, a lifesaving device that helps restore normal blood flow for patients with serious heart failure.
• Jefferson has helped pioneer the use of next-generation drug-eluting stents in angioplasty, and we were the first hospital in Philadelphia to treat patients with them.
• The Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery's full-time staff of cardiac surgeons performs more than 600 major cardiac operations annually. State-of-the-art procedures include arterial revascularization for coronary artery disease and aortic valve replacements.
• Jefferson researchers' landmark discovery of the pivotal role a protein called GRK2 plays in the heart's function is helping advance the prevention of heart failure.