Patients typically progress to lower cost-of-care settings or are discharged from the hospital because the HeartMate VE/XVE System allows late-stage heart failure patients to be rehabilitated.
Using average costs for hospitalization, this model shows how HeartMate LVAS patients can be less expensive to maintain in the hospital than end-stage heart failure patients who must be confined to the ICU. Close monitoring by highly-skilled staff and titration of cardiac pharmaceutical support is expensive. The break-even point in this model is approximately 45 days from device implant. The average wait for a donor heart is over six months.
*Data on file at Thoratec Corporation.
