Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute Completes State-of-the-Art Expansion Project

March 2, 2017–Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute (MCVI) announced the completion of its 3-year, $120 million expansion project on the Baptist Hospital campus. Barry T. Katzen, MD, who is Chief Medical Executive of MCVI, founded the institute in 1987. 

MCVI is part of Baptist Health South Florida, which is composed of Baptist Hospital and six other hospitals, as well as outpatient and urgent care facilities, Baptist Health Medical Group, Baptist Health Quality Network, and internationally renowned centers of excellence.

With the expansion, the institute has created the National Center for Aneurysm Therapy, Center for Structural Heart Therapy, Center for Critical Limb Ischemia, and an Advanced Arrhythmia Therapy Center. Baptist Hospital’s Surgery Center now includes six large operating rooms dedicated to neuroscience, cardiac, vascular, and robotic surgery.

According to MCVI, the expansion includes a state-the-art catheterization lab with the first installation in North America of the Azurion image-guided therapy system, which was launched by Royal Philips in February. MCVI noted that the institute has been an integral innovation partner for Philips, providing valuable clinical insights that have led to the development of industry-leading solutions such as Azurion.

The state-of-the-art facility's additional space and cutting-edge technology will facilitate 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 renovated 40,000 square feet, nearly doubling the size of the institute to 150,000 square feet to accommodate a growing number of patients and procedures.

In the announcement, Dr. Katzen commented, “This expansion allows us to be at the forefront of medical innovation and provides the most current treatment options for our patients, and at the same time, prepares us to be in the position to care for health problems we haven’t even encountered yet. We are now able to conduct more research, offer new services, and make discoveries that could transform how cardiovascular care is delivered."

The institute also added four new advanced endovascular suites with enlarged gallery viewing areas for enhanced teaching and learning opportunities. Two of the new endovascular suites have glass walls and a video system that allows 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.

Dr. Katzen explained, “This is the centerpiece of the expansion, the Center for Advanced Endovascular Therapies. 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.”