The Strategy

The institute’s strategy will be to cultivate the tremendous synergistic advantages of engineers, surgeons, biologists, physiologists, veterinarians and cardiologists working together in one institute. This multidisciplinary team will focus on one goal: to improve the lives of patients who have advanced heart failure. This model will enable researchers from different disciplines to interact and share their expertise and knowledge. For example, the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute will collaborate with the University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering, where engineers work in one of only three labs in the United States that create micro- and nano-technology sensors thinner than a human hair. These tiny but powerful biofeedback sensors will improve the performance of bio-adaptive heart innovations for patients.

The institute will seek research grants from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health to conduct basic and applied research related to bio-adaptive heart innovations. It will also help biomedical device companies fill in the gap between the first prototype and FDA market approval of a reliable heart assist device that is safe and effective. The institute will be attractive to federal agencies and to corporate sponsors because it has all the components necessary to support research and development in one location: lab studies, device testing, design improvements, device augmentation, pre-clinical testing, FDA clinical trials, information management and, ultimately, implantation in a patient.

The institute will host an annual symposium that will attract the best minds in the world to Louisville to discuss the latest developments in bio-adaptive heart innovations. By showcasing the institute to these researchers, surgeons, entrepreneurs, government
administrators and engineers, the institute will be positioned for early access to test and implant the latest life-saving heart innovations. The symposium will also be a useful component in raising funds to support the mission of the institute.

Since Jewish Hospital is an established clinical center of excellence in cardiac surgery and a federally designated transplant center, the institute is in the position to rapidly transfer ideas from the laboratory to the patient, faster than other academic sites that do not have large heart and lung institutes next door. Equally accessible to the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute is the Frazier Rehab Institute, the location of worldclass cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. Many device manufacturers will need to test their devices’ ability to sustain a patient during prolonged exercise. The exercise capacity of a patient is one of the objective measurements of a device’s reliability and of a patient’s quality of life.

Design concept, prototyping and engineering, device testing, development and improvement, clinical trials, user training, surgical implantation, and cardiac rehabilitation — all will be accomplished at the Louisville Medical Center. And once innovations have been proven in the lab and in clinical studies, there will be the opportunity to develop new businesses in Louisville around the core technologies.

"The pioneering spirit that led to the success of the AbioCor replacement heart will bethe guiding force at the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute,” said Hank Wagner, president of Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services. “This can only mean great things for the city of Louisville and for the patients we care for at Jewish Hospital.”