Advanced treatment

We offer mechanical support options while you wait for a heart transplant—or sometimes instead of a transplant. For example, a ventricular assist device (VAD) allows you to live normally at home. As one of the first hospitals in the Southeast to offer VADs, we’ve implanted more than 500, including implanting the first total artificial heart in 2018. We were also among the first to provide extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for patients with severe conditions.