04/04/2018 Cardiovascular procedures at New Karolinska Hospital

The cardiovascular division was first to move in to the new Karolinska building one year ago. The rest of the hospital will move to the state-of-the-art building in a near future. The patients benefit from large single rooms throughout the building. Dr Andreas Rück is the head of the Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) program, which is the busiest in the country.

“We were able to increase the number of procedures by 50% in 2017 compared to the year before. This year we plan to further increase the number of procedures up to 350. At the same time we streamline the process for the patients, and we are now for the first time able to have a lower total cost for TAVI compared to open surgical aortic valve replacement.

The new 120-square-meter hybrid operating room enables invasive cardiologists and cardiac surgeons to do more complex procedures with high-quality imaging and all surgical possibilities. In addition to fluoroscopy and CT guidance, we are routinely using ultrasound, sometimes two machines simultaneously, during the procedures.

The installed recording equipment is routinely used in a ”black box” concept, enabling us to go back and learn from what happened during the procedures. This is a safety feature which should be as important in complex procedures as it is in aviation.”