1. Nels Carroll, MD, a cardiologist at Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Los Robles Health System, performed the first robotic-assisted coronary artery bypass grafting procedure in Ventura County.
2. An Australian man became the first person in the world to be discharged with a BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart.
3. A team from Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health performed the world’s first living mitral valve replacement after a heart transplant patient donated healthy valves from their original heart to two other patients.
4. A team at Morgantown, W.Va.-based WVU Medicine’s Heart and Vascular Institute performed the first transcatheter tricuspid valve replacements in the state and region.
5. A team from Charleston, S.C.-based MUSC Health’s Heart and Vascular Center became the first in the country to implant the Topaz device, a new transcatheter tricuspid heart valve replacement system.
6. A team at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Hospital performed the first Balloon-Assisted Translocation of the Mitral Anterior Leaflet, or BATMAN, procedure in the state.
7. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health appointed Jose Baez-Escudero, MD, as the first systemwide chief of cardiology.
8. A team at Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare’s Children’s Hospital of Illinois became the first in the world to implant an extravascular implantable, cardioverter-defibrillator in a pediatric patient who had suffered sudden cardiac arrest.
