At Tampa General, our Heart Failure Center of Excellence within the Heart & Vascular Institute provides comprehensive services to improve heart failure care across all phases of a patient’s care journey – from prevention to end-stage treatment options.
Since 1988, our cardiologists have cared for individuals with end-stage heart disease, providing the most advanced therapies and achieving milestones like performing the first successful heart transplant in the state. Today, we have a successful ventricular assist device (VAD) program and our Transplant Institute is one of the top 10 in the country. All candidates for transplant are evaluated by the Heart Failure Center of Excellence to determine suitability for ventricular assist device (VAD) therapy and heart transplant.
Our team leverages over 150 years of combined experience and performs 50 heart transplants a year. We were the first heart transplant and left ventricular assist device (LVAD) center in Florida and have saved over 1,500 lives through transplant. In addition, we offer multiple subspecialty programs to patients with genetic, inflammatory, infiltrative and chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathies.
Our team of world-class physicians provides state-of-the-art care for patients utilizing a collaborative, multidisciplinary, patient-first approach with a focus on:
- Advanced congestive heart failure management
- Heart transplantation
- Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS) Program, including LVAD, Impella, and VA ECMO
- 24/7 cardiogenic shock management
- Cardiomyopathy management, with sub specialization in HFpEF, HCM and Amyloid and Sarcoid disease processes
- Cardio-oncology
- Transitions of care
Nationally Recognized Care
Tampa General Hospital is known for providing world-class care and our collaboration with the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine has placed us at the forefront of innovation in heart and vascular landscape.
Because of our commitment to excellent care, U.S. News & World Report has recognized Tampa General Hospital as One of the Nation's Best Hospitals for Heart & Vascular care in 2024-25. TGH also earned special recognition from U.S. News & World Report as a High Performing Hospital for heart failure and heart attack care for 2024-25. Additionally, Tampa General’s VAD program has received advanced disease-specific certification from The Joint Commission.
Advanced Technology & Innovation
Our Heart Failure Center offers the most advanced cardiac care available, ranging from initial diagnosis to heart transplantation, to end of life care. As the only academic health system in the region, we often have early access to cutting-edge research into new therapies that allow us to continually improve our patient outcomes. Our center features:
- the first and only 24/7 multidisciplinary cardiogenic shock program in Florida, with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) cannulation in the catheterization laboratory.
- Leading implant center in Tampa Bay region for nueromodulation device shown to improve quality of life and reduce mortality.
- point-of-care ECHO Imaging with AI technology for rapid diagnosis.
Multidisciplinary Team Approach
We promote a multidisciplinary approach, recognizing that often our patients need or are receiving care through different specialties, including the TGH Transplant Institute, Interventional Cardiology, Electrophysiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, General Cardiology and Cardiac Imaging. In addition, our Heart Failure approach offers cross-discipline solutions, including genetic testing, non-cardiac surgical support, and partnerships with our neurology and oncology teams at Tampa General Hospital. This allows our center to offer comprehensive, highly specialized care that is unsurpassed in the region. This level of coordinated care is supported by our physicians, dedicated advanced practitioners, nurses and support staff to provide superior patient experience and outcomes.
Our compassionate and coordinated care efforts, matched with advanced experience and capabilities are what give our patients their greatest advantage. We also have the capabilities to provide support across the entire patient experience and care continuum.
To accomplish this goal, we partner with every specialist a patient may need for care and offer support services, including:
- Bariatrics specialists who can help patients with weight loss necessary for certain procedures
- Geneticists dedicated to offering evaluation, treatment and counseling to patients and families with genetic heart diseases
- To help enhance our care, our experts conduct state-of-the-art studies for familial cardiomyopathies, which are genetic forms of heart disease
- If needed, pulmonary hypertension experts are ready to help patients improve symptoms and slow the progression of the disease
- Psychological counseling to help improve patients’ mental health
