At UI Healthcare Heart and Vascular Center, Dr. Phillip Horwitz provides leadership & flexibility to form multidisciplinary teams in the search for innovation & effectiveness.

Traditionally, patients with heart valve disease or other structural heart problems had limited options for care. It usually meant major surgery: opening the chest with a large incision down the sternum. Recovery could take weeks or months, was painful, and required extensive cardiac rehabilitation. And for some patients, because of their age or health conditions, this option was simply too risky.

Today, nearly a decade since the first catheter-based heart procedures were performed at the University of Iowa Heart and Vascular Center, interventional cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons have collaborated to offer a series of highly specialized, less-invasive treatment options.

Read the complete article (by Aleksandra Vujicic for medicineiowa.org).