Heart Success Program

The Heart Success Program at Morristown Medical Center is a comprehensive inpatient and outpatient management program designed to provide specialized heart care for patients with advanced heart failure, cardiomyopathies and pulmonary hypertension. 

Our expert heart failure team, including specialized RNs, nurse practitioners, dieticians and pharmacists, evaluates heart patients and develops a comprehensive plan of heart care for both the patient and family.

What is Heart Failure?

A normal healthy heart can pump blood to the body to meet even strenuous demands. Circulating blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues, and removes waste products. A weakened heart muscle has difficulty performing this task, which leads to fluid (water) back-up in the lungs and other parts of the body such as the feet, ankles, legs, hands and abdomen. Fluid retention then makes pumping even more difficult. The body needs blood constantly pumped through it, carrying oxygen and other nutrients to bones, nerves and organs. With heart failure, pumping slows down and the rest of the body does not get what it needs to work well, which puts even more demands on the already weakened heart.

More than two million Americans have heart failure, and about 700,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. The five-year survival is approximately 50 percent, but varies greatly for each individual depending on the cause of heart failure and other factors. The good news is that many of the heart failure hospitalizations that occur each year can be prevented with early evaluation and care. Many people are able to make changes to their lifestyle and live an active life with heart failure.

Helping Heart Patients Help Themselves

Open, ongoing communication with the referring physicians regarding the patient’s progress and eventual discharge from the program is the cornerstone of the Heart Success Program. Heart patients receive intensive education focusing on techniques for self-care management, telemanagement, access to cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art diagnostic testing. In some cases, a ventricular assist device (VAD) can be used to partially or completely replace the function of a failing heart. Our VAD program has received the Gold Seal of Approval™ Disease-Specific Care Certification from The Joint Commission, demonstrating that it is patient-centered, comprehensive, well developed and has met stringent standards of care.

Our heart care services also include:

• Cardiac rehabilitation
• Integrative medicine
• Impedance cardiography (ICG), also known as thoracic electrical bioimpedance (TEB) – a non-invasive method of measuring changes in blood flow in the heart and lungs over time.
• Acoustic cardiography – a non-invasive technology that enables clinicians to integrate heart sounds and echocardiogram data to measure heart function and blood flow.
• Cardiopulmonary metabolic exercise stress testing (CMET) – a non-invasive test that measures heart, lungs and functional capacity at the same time, providing more comprehensive data than the standard treadmill stress test.
• Transplant evaluation