UH Elyria Medical Center Brings New Healthcare Investments to the Community

ELYRIA, Ohio - University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center is making several investments to better serve patients in the community. Next year the hospital will mark the start of a new structural heart program, in addition to recent enhancements to minimally invasive procedure capabilities and the use of robotics to offer high quality care for patients close to home.

UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute at UH Elyria is enriching its program by adding a left atrial appendage occlusion procedure, known as LAAO or Watchman, to the services available for patients. It is a minimally invasive heart procedure performed under “twilight” anesthesia to permanently close the LAA as a lifetime alternative to taking blood thinning medications for stroke prevention in people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, commonly called AFib.

UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute’s LAAO program is nationally recognized for excellence, with the highest success rate in America at 99.7 percent, and one of the lowest published procedure complications. In addition, UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute is one of the first in the country to implement same-day discharge protocols for the procedure, allowing patients to get back to the comfort of their own home instead of a prolonged hospital stay.

The procedure is performed by Steven Filby, MD, an interventional cardiologist, and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. Dr. Filby is ranked as the third highest operator in the world for this procedure.

“It is our duty as doctors to help people and at UH it is our mission to bring quality care closer to home for people across Northeast Ohio,” said Mehdi Shishehbor, DO, MPH, PhD, President of UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, and Angela and James Hambrick Chair in Innovation. “By bringing a doctor with expertise of this caliber to our patients in Elyria we continue to provide life-saving care to patients without the stresses of lengthy travel, parking fees, and navigating unfamiliar places.”

UH Elyria is also strengthening the use of advanced technology in the operating room. The newest member of the surgical team at UH Elyria is a high-tech da Vinci Xi robot, an investment that is propelling UH Elyria to the forefront of surgical advancement in Lorain County. The surgical robot at UH Elyria will be used for a variety of procedures, including urology, general surgery, thoracic, and gynecologic procedures.

“Bringing this important cardiac procedure and surgical robot to UH Elyria Medical Center is yet another example of investing in our hospital so we can keep our patients in our community, close to home," said Todd Harford, MBA, BSN, RN, UH Elyria's Chief Operating Officer.

In robotic surgery, the arms of the robot are positioned over the patient by the caregivers, and the surgeon operates from a control console. The addition of the robot will allow caregivers to continue providing advanced methods with remarkable outcomes in Lorain County.