CMS certified the University Hospitals and Health System in Jackson, Mississippi, on Aug. 17 as a facility that has met CMS’s standards for destination therapy ventricular assist devices.
Since 2003, CMS has certified 152 centers with this designation, including two others this year: Saint Cloud Hospital in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and Lubbock County Hospital District in Lubbock, Texas.
Ventricular assist devices are mechanical pumps used to treat patients with heart disease and heart failure. When Medtronic completed its acquisition of HeartWare International in August, the company said the market for ventricular assist devices was currently $800 million and would increase significantly in the coming years.
Medtronic also expects the number of adults in the U.S. with heart failure to increase from five million this year to eight million by 2030.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.