Meet Dr. Parikshit Sharma, New Section Head of Electrophysiology

Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute in Florida recently welcomed Parikshit S. Sharma, MD, MPH, FACC, FHRS, as the new Section Head of Electrophysiology. Previously, Dr. Sharma served as Section Chief of Cardiac Electrophysiology and the Director of the Electrophysiology lab at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

A board-certified specialist in both cardiovascular disease and clinical cardiac electrophysiology, Dr. Sharma was fellowship-trained at The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education and Virginia Commonwealth University. He has expertise in managing complex arrhythmias, performing atrial fibrillation ablations, and implementing advanced pacing techniques.

Dr. Sharma distinguished himself early in his career as coauthor of a position paper demonstrating the feasibility and safety of permanent His bundle pacing (HBP) and subsequent reduced heart failure hospitalizations and mortality when compared to right ventricular pacing. This research, published in the journal Heart Rhythm, earned him the distinction of “Next Gen Innovator” in Cardiology Today in 2017.

He later received the Joan and Douglas P. Zipes Publication of the Year Award in 2019 from the Heart Rhythm Society for a seminal article on HBP as an alternative to biventricular pacing for certain patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

In this Q&A, Dr. Sharma shares his vision for the Electrophysiology (EP) Program at Cleveland Clinic in Florida and his current research on conduction system pacing.

Q.What is your vision for the Electrophysiology Program?

A:Our goal at Cleveland Clinic is to make the program the strongest and the most reputable electrophysiology program in Florida. Our vision is to provide the highest level of care to patients with electrophysiology needs. Second, we hope to expand and advance our research portfolio by participating in a number of large scale randomized trials. The third piece is supporting Cleveland Clinic’s academic mission. We are currently establishing an EP fellowship program in Florida and hope to welcome our first fellows in July 2026.

Q: What are your responsibilities as Section Head of Electrophysiology?

A:My responsibilities include providing regional oversight for Cleveland Clinic’s EP services across our three local markets in Florida, stretching from Broward to Indian River County. Here at Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital, where I’m based, we have a team of four electrophysiologists and three nurse practitioners. We also have two EP specialists at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital, and an additional team offering EP services at Cleveland Clinic Martin North Hospital in Stuart and Tradition Hospital in Port St. Lucie.

As a high-volume center in Weston, we have plans to nearly double our capacity by adding an additional physician and another EP suite. One of my priorities is to also establish a fast track program to streamline cases so that patients are seen within days of a referral rather than weeks, including for our international patients, who make up roughly 10% of our patient volume. We also will be scaling up the types of procedures we offer at Weston Hospital.

Q: What types of procedures will be added?

A:Some of the procedures we are adding have never been done at a Cleveland Clinic hospital in Florida, while others may not be offered anywhere in the state. The foremost is conduction system pacing, a specialized type of pacing we first described about 16 years ago. This includes His bundling pacing and left bundle branch pacing. Few specialists in the Florida market perform these procedures, and it’s an area that we're hoping to expand on. Initially these cases will be performed in Weston, but our plan is to offer training so that our teams across the Florida region can offer these to their patients locally.

The second procedure is ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation, including epicardial VT ablation. In the past, more complex cases were often sent to Cleveland Clinic’s main campus in Ohio. We hope to now offer some of these here in Weston.

Lead extraction is a third area where there is a big unmet need in southeast Florida. Whenever a patient with a cardiac implantable electronic device has a bloodstream infection or they have some form of lead failure, these leads need to be extracted. These patients are often very sick, and the procedures are lengthy and can be high-risk, depending on how long the leads have been in place and whether it's a defibrillator lead or pacemaker lead. We have a lot of experience with minimally invasive lead extraction. This is an important procedure that we can now offer patients in the region.

Q: What is your current research focus?

A:Conduction system pacing is a big area of focus for me, and I’m excited to bring my work in this area and $1.1 million in research funding to Cleveland Clinic in Florida. We are currently an enrollment site and electrocardiogram (ECG) core lab for a multi-center, international, randomized clinical trial comparing the safety and effectiveness of His/left bundle branch pacing (His/LBBP) to the standard biventricular pacing (BiVP) in individuals with HFrEF. Approximately 2,200 patients will be enrolled in the Left vs Left RCT across 55 locations over the next five years.

Q. What should primary care physicians keep in mind about the growing arrythmia disease burden?

A: Electrophysiology is one of the most rapidly growing areas within the cardiovascular and thoracic space. Currently an estimated 10 million Americans have atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common heart arrhythmia, and the projection is that by 2050 it could grow to 25 million. The incidence and prevalence of arrhythmia diseases and the newer indications for EP procedures are the big drivers in the field. Recent studies and trials on AF have highlighted the need for early referrals and interventions to help reduce hospitalizations and improve cardiovascular outcomes.

As a chronic disease, AF is like having diabetes. The quicker patients see an electrophysiologist, the quicker we can identify all the risk factors and intervene, and the higher the impact we may have on their disease in keeping it under control. I would urge general practitioners and general cardiologists to refer patients to an EP specialist as quickly as you see them. At Cleveland Clinic, we can help guide patient care and only intervene when the time is right.