Organization - Cardiology Service

The Cardiology Department sees over 15,000 users each year to diagnose and treat heart disease. The Service’s professionals diagnose and treat all types of heart disease and aortic disease in adults. It also works in coordination with the Hospital de Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona to complete the care offered to paediatric patients with heart disease.

The Department works in coordination with professionals in other healthcare areas in the Heart Failure and the: 

The Service has leading professionals specialized in the treatment of patients with chronic coronary heart disease and acute coronary syndromes such as angina pectoris or myocardial infarction; arrhythmias; heart valve diseases, congenital and inherited heart disease as well as the treatment of acute and chronic heart failure, including heart transplants and short and long-term ventricular assist devices. 

The Cardiology Department provides assistance in various healthcare areas:

• Acute Cardiac Care Section. It has 16 beds, eight of which are reserved for patients requiring intensive care, and eleven are for semi-intensive care patients.  The remaining bed is used for patients with myocardial infarction requiring coronary intervention from other centres in the territory, as part of the Heart Attack Code of Catalonia.  Once treated, these patients return to their centre of origin to continue their convalescence.  This Acute Cardiac Care area treats patients with acute coronary syndrome, which includes myocardial infarction and angina pectoris, and patients with severe heart failure, as well as patients who come to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department with heart problems
• Heart Failure Unit. . It treats patients with heart failure, especially those in advanced stages, and is a reference centre for the management of chronic heart failure in AISBE patients. Around 20 heart transplants are preformed at the hospital each year. Moreover, it has a specialized consultation unit focusing on inherited cardiomyopathies (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, or non-compaction cardiomyopathy, etc.), pathologies for which it is a national reference centre (CSUR).
• Cardiac Imaging Section. It has five observation beds for echocardiography and two for ergometry. In collaboration with the Diagnostic Imaging Centre’s Thoracic Section, it has a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine for cardiovascular imaging, thanks to support from the Fundació Daniel Bravo, and it also has a multislice Computed Tomography (CT) scanner. Each year, 14,000 echocardiograms (1,000 transesophageal and the rest transthoracic), 800 cardiac MRI scans, 200 coronary CT scans, and over 2,200 ergometric stress tests are carried out.
• Arrhythmias Section. It has two rooms equipped to preform ablation procedures for supraventricular tachycardia, and radiofrequency and cryoablation ablation to treat atrial fibrillation. Pacemakers are also implanted (dual- and triple-chamber), defibrillators and devices for the prolonged recording of the heart rhythm. The Service is a pioneer in the implantation of wireless pacemakers and subcutaneous defibrillators. Each year around 200 conventional ablations and 150 complex ablations (atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia) are performed. Approximately 900 pacemakers and defibrillators are implanted each year. It also has a specialized clinic for inherited electrical disorders of the heart, including Brugada Syndrome and Long QT Syndrome.
• Haemodynamics and Interventional Cardiology Section. It has two wards equipped for performing diagnostic coronary angiography, coronary and structural interventions on valves or congenital defects. Over 3,200 diagnostic catheterizations and 1,300 coronary interventions with stents are performed each year. Moreover, around 500 patients are treated annually under the Heart Attack Code of Catalonia programme. For approximately 10 years, congenital and valvular disease has also been treated percutaneously, including the implantation of aortic valve prostheses (TAVI), mitral valve repair (mitral clip mitral and other modalities), the closure of perivalvular, atrial appendage, atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect leaks, and the percutaneous treatment of patent ductus arteriosus and coarctation of the aorta.