Education
Preventing Heart Disease - Infographic
Now is the right time to start paying attention to your heart health. You can lower your risk for heart attack and stroke by knowing the risk factors that affect your heart.
Heart Failure Program
Heart Failure, Cardiac Transplant, and Mechanical Circulatory Support
When you have heart failure, you deserve to have a world-class medical team on your side, prepared to treat the condition no matter how complex. At Stanford Health Care, our internationally recognized experts provide unique insights into your heart care and deliver the latest diagnosis and treatment options for all types of heart failure and lead the way in research to advance care. Choosing Stanford Health Care for heart failure care means receiving state-of-the-art heart care to get you back to living your best life.
What We Offer You for Heart Failure
- Internationally recognized expertise in diagnosing and treating all forms of heart failure.
- Specialized diagnostics including genetic testing, cardiac MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
- Comprehensive support services such as support groups, nutrition counseling, and behavioral therapy to help you live well during treatment and beyond.
- Access to clinical trials so patients can receive the latest heart failure treatments, including medical devices, that aren’t widely available.
- Ongoing clinical research to provide access to cutting-edge technology and innovative therapies to improve health and quality of life.
Our team of experts has specialized training in heart failure and have dedicated their careers to deeply understanding and effectively treating this condition. We take on the most complex heart failure cases that other health centers consider too challenging to treat. If medication therapy isn’t working, then we can assess whether heart transplantation or left ventricular assist devices will help.
We play a key role in medical research and device trials, paving the way for lifesaving discoveries. Our experts’ training and research, combined with our team approach to care, help you get back to your life as soon as possible.
Types of Heart Failure
Our heart failure experts have extensive expertise in delivering treatment for all types and stages of heart failure:
Systolic heart failure (heart failure with reduced ejection fraction): The heart muscle is weak and cannot pump blood, which can result from:
- Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia
- Coronary artery disease
- Dilated cardiomyopathy
- Left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC)
- Muscular dystrophy such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)
- Sarcoidosis
Diastolic heart failure (heart failure with preserved ejection fraction): The heart is stiff and cannot relax properly, which can result from:
- Amyloidosis
- Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
- Hypertensive heart disease
- Infiltrative cardiomyopathy
- Restrictive cardiomyopathy
- Scleroderma
Heart valve disease from either leaky (regurgitation) valves, tight (stenotic) valves, or both, including:
- Aortic valve disease
- Mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation
- Tricuspid valve disease
- Pulmonic valve disease
Congenital heart disease, an abnormal development of the heart that occurs during pregnancy before a baby is born. Congenital heart problems range from routine to complex.
Nationally Recognized
HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
We are proud to have earned recognition from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation "Healthcare Equality Index."
Complete Care & Support
Our heart failure experts work closely with you to help you manage the condition so you can live your life to the fullest. Our team of highly trained heart failure cardiologists collaborate with Stanford colleagues in many fields of medicine:
- Adult congenital heart disease
- Cardiothoracic surgery
- Electrophysiology
- Cardiac genetic counseling
- Interventional cardiologists
- Palliative care
These doctors collaborate on all stages of care, from diagnosis to personalized treatment planning through follow-up and chronic disease management. They will surround you with expertise and compassion and partner with you on your care.
At Stanford, we take a unique approach by collaborating with heart specialists from many different clinics to treat the many causes of heart failure. No other health center offers the number and spectrum of specialized clinics to treat heart failure and the conditions that cause it. Our clinics expand your access to other Stanford specialists, opening doors to options and healing.
HEART DISEASE IS PREVENTABLE.
Heart Failure Clinics
Diagnosis
Treatment
As world leaders in heart failure care, we combine expertise and technology to deliver the most advanced diagnosis and treatment options available.
The symptoms of heart failure are commonly mistaken for those of other conditions. Our experts are dedicated to getting to the bottom of your health concerns as quickly as possible so treatment can begin.
Diagnosing Heart Failure
Whether you come to our program with a diagnosis or not, we will perform testing to confirm or refine the diagnosis. We offer all available tests for diagnosing heart failure, such as blood tests, heart function tests, and cardiac imaging. Your doctor will recommend the testing necessary to design a care plan tailored to you.
Diagnostic program highlights include:
- Advanced diagnostics: We offer genetic testing, cardiac MRI, and cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
- Diagnostic expertise: We deliver expertise in interpreting testing for unusual myopathies, such as amyloidosis and sarcoidosis.
Treating Heart Failure
Our specialized cardiologists and other experts offer a full range of heart failure treatment options that leverage the latest technology. Our experts proudly participate in research to advance many of these treatments. Your doctor will work with you to determine the right options for you.
Our treatments include:
- Medications to target specific symptoms and meet treatment goals
- Implantable devices including pacemakers, cardiac resynchronization therapy devices, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD), and implantable hemodynamic monitors
- Minimally invasive procedures for valve diseases including transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVR)
- Surgery including coronary artery bypass graft surgery, valve repair or replacement, heart transplant, congenital heart repair, septal myomectomy, and ventricular remodeling
- Mechanical circulatory support using a permanent or temporary left ventricular assist device (LVAD)
- Heart transplant to treat heart failure when medical and device therapy is no longer effective
- Catheter ablation to treat atrial and ventricular arrhythmias
- Percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty and stenting) to treat coronary artery disease
- Palliative care to help improve your quality of life during and after heart failure treatment
Heart Failure Clinics
Diagnosis
As world leaders in heart failure care, we combine expertise and technology to deliver the most advanced diagnosis and treatment options available.
The symptoms of heart failure are commonly mistaken for those of other conditions. Our experts are dedicated to getting to the bottom of your health concerns as quickly as possible so treatment can begin.
Diagnosing Heart Failure
Whether you come to our program with a diagnosis or not, we will perform testing to confirm or refine the diagnosis. We offer all available tests for diagnosing heart failure, such as blood tests, heart function tests, and cardiac imaging. Your doctor will recommend the testing necessary to design a care plan tailored to you.
Diagnostic program highlights include:
- Advanced diagnostics: We offer genetic testing, cardiac MRI, and cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
- Diagnostic expertise: We deliver expertise in interpreting testing for unusual myopathies, such as amyloidosis and sarcoidosis.
close Diagnosis
Treatment
Treating Heart Failure
Our specialized cardiologists and other experts offer a full range of heart failure treatment options that leverage the latest technology. Our experts proudly participate in research to advance many of these treatments. Your doctor will work with you to determine the right options for you.
Our treatments include:
- Medications to target specific symptoms and meet treatment goals
- Implantable devices including pacemakers, cardiac resynchronization therapy devices, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD), and implantable hemodynamic monitors
- Minimally invasive procedures for valve diseases including transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVR)
- Surgery including coronary artery bypass graft surgery, valve repair or replacement, heart transplant, congenital heart repair, septal myomectomy, and ventricular remodeling
- Mechanical circulatory support using a permanent or temporary left ventricular assist device (LVAD)
- Heart transplant to treat heart failure when medical and device therapy is no longer effective
- Catheter ablation to treat atrial and ventricular arrhythmias
- Percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty and stenting) to treat coronary artery disease
- Palliative care to help improve your quality of life during and after heart failure treatment
close Treatment
Each person with heart failure, no matter what type and stage, has concerns about their health, comfort, and life. Our team will surround you with the individualized support you need to navigate your care journey with confidence. And we will help you and your loved ones understand the condition, treatments, and ways to support you as you manage the condition.
Doctor Stories
Stanford Physicians Perform Minimally Invasive Procedure to Implant Device Targeting Treatment-resistant Heart Failure
In March 2024, a team of heart failure (HF) specialists and vascular surgeons completed Stanford Health Care’s first successful implantation of a device to treat patients with drug-resistant HF.
Clinical trials
We offer one of the nation’s most robust clinical trial programs for heart failure. These research studies evaluate new medical approaches, devices, drugs, and other treatments.
As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may be eligible to participate in open clinical trials. Open trials refer to studies currently recruiting participants or that may recruit participants in the near future. Closed trials are not currently enrolling, but similar studies may open in the future.
Closed trials are not currently enrolling, but may open in the future.
As an academic medical center, we not only apply research and leading-edge technology to our care, but we are also at the forefront of creating it.
Over the years, Stanford’s research contributions have led to many medical breakthroughs and transformative discoveries. One of those breakthroughs that touches heart failure care includes our performing the first successful heart transplant in the United States in 1968.
For Referring Physicians
PHYSICIAN HELPLINE
Phone: 1-866-742-4811
Fax: 650-320-9443
Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Fax: 650-320-9443
Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Stanford Health Care provides comprehensive services to refer and track patients, as well as the latest information and news for physicians and office staff. For help with all referral needs and questions, visit Referral Information.
You may also submit a web referral or complete a referral form and fax it to 650-320-9443 or email the Referral Center at ReferralCenter@stanfordhealthcare.org.
HOW TO REFER
Call Val Cannon at 650-724-4942.
- Send referrals online
- Place radiology and lab orders
- View referral status
- Access medical records
Make An Appointment
To make an appointment with one of our specialists, call 650-724-4942.