Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute recently completed its $120 million expansion project on the Baptist Hospital campus in Kendall.
The state-of-the-art facility includes additional space and cutting-edge technology, facilitating the creation of several new, specialized programs bringing together multidisciplinary teams of specialists to treat the cardiovascular system as a single entity.
The expansion added 60,000 square feet of new space and included 40,000 square feet of renovations, nearly doubling the size of the Institute to 150,000 square feet in order to accommodate a growing number of patients and procedures. Since it was founded in 1987, Institute physicians have pioneered less-invasive techniques to treat aneurysms, stroke and heart disease, and have been part of many groundbreaking research trials.
For 30 years, Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute has been an integral innovation partner for Philips, a world leader in healthcare technologies, providing valuable clinical insights that have led to the development of industry-leading solutions such as the recently announced Philips Azurion Image Guided Therapy (IGT) system.
The expansion includes a state-of-the-art Cath lab, representing the first North American installation of Azurion. The system is designed to anticipate what clinicians need, when they need it, to make procedures flow intuitively and support a superior patient experience.
“This expansion allows us to be at the forefront of medical innovation and provides the most current treatment options for our patients, while at the same time, prepares us to be in the position to care for health problems we haven’t even encountered yet,” said Barry T. Katzen, MD, chief medical executive and founder of the Institute. “We are now able to conduct more research, offer new services and make discoveries that could transform how cardiovascular care is delivered.”
Throughout its history, the Institute’s physicians have pioneered less-invasive techniques to treat aneurysms, stroke and heart disease, and have been part of many groundbreaking research trials. The newly expanded Institute, with its cutting-edge equipment and unique programs, allows the Institute’s internationally respected physicians to continue their visionary work.
One of the first elements of the three-year project was the expansion of Baptist Hospital’s Surgery Center, which now includes six large operating rooms dedicated to neuroscience, cardiac, vascular and robotic surgery. The Institute also added four new advanced endovascular suites with enlarged gallery viewing areas for enhanced teaching and learning opportunities.
“This is the centerpiece of the expansion, the Center for Advanced Endovascular Therapies,” Dr. Katzen explained. “We wanted to create an environment in which we could do any type of predominantly image-guided procedure, where physicians of different disciplines could work together to create unique solutions for patients’ problems.”
In designing interventional suites of the future, two of the new endovascular suites have glass walls and a video system that allow people to sit in a theater-style chair outside of the suite and control what they are watching using an iPad. Viewers from different disciplines or in training can have their own unique user interface that allows them to pick and choose which parts of the procedure they want to watch, all with communication with the suites.
Additionally, the Institute makeover created the National Center for Aneurysm Therapy — the first in the world — a Center for Structural Heart Therapy, Center for Critical Limb Ischemia and an Advanced Arrhythmia Therapy Center. It is here where physicians are doing research to discover more cardiovascular disease breakthroughs.
“We are proud to open the doors of the new Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute to our community,” said Brian E. Keeley, president and CEO of Baptist Health South Florida. “This expansion now provides even greater promise to our patients, with new state-of-the-art interventional procedure suites; an expansive, high-tech gallery for observation, diagnostics and greater teaching opportunities; and, research space for more than 120 clinical trials.”
Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute is the largest and most comprehensive cardiovascular facility in the region, consisting of 76 doctors and 1,100 employees system-wide serving 125,000 patients every year.
“At Philips, we are committed to building a healthy society by creating solutions that are going to have a meaningful impact in improving human health, and this requires collaboration with pioneering organizations like Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute,” said Brent Shafer, CEO of Philips North America.
“The Institute’s clinical insights have been critical to the development of our Azurion technology, from understanding workflows and improving efficiencies, to understand how to improve the patient experience. Together, we are shaping the future of healthcare by making procedures safer and more efficient,” he added. “This will not only help address the health issues in South Florida communities, it will allow us to apply those lessons globally to help tackle the challenges of rising healthcare costs and better access to care. Ultimately, we want to improve the patient experience and outcomes, one community at a time.”
