Taking the Cleveland Clinic Heart Care Model to London

Cleveland Clinic is preparing to bring its distinctive group practice model to a new setting — the heart of London — and cardiovascular care will be one of the flagship clinical offerings.

So announce a team of Cleveland Clinic leaders in a “CardioPulse” news article in the September 7, 2018, issue of the European Heart Journal.

The U.S.-based health system will partner with specialist physicians and general practitioners in the U.K. to care for patients in state-of-the-art private facilities using Cleveland Clinic’s team-based, physician-led care philosophy and infrastructure. The facilities — to be called Cleveland Clinic London — include an outpatient medical building to open in 2020 and a 21st-century inpatient hospital to open in early 2021. The 200-bed hospital is being converted from an existing building (shown in photo above) near Buckingham Palace, with its entire six-floor interior being reconstructed and reimagined for patient care in the decades to come.

The European Heart Journal article notes that Cleveland Clinic London’s offerings will include:

• Cardiac and thoracic surgery
• Interventional and diagnostic cardiology
• Electrophysiology
• Cardiac imaging
• Vascular surgery

The hospital will house a dedicated cardiac surgery operating theater, a hybrid theater, a biplane catheterization lab and a single-plane catheterization/electrophysiology lab, among other features. “An interdisciplinary heart team approach — including general practitioners, when they’re involved in a case — will be brought to bear for all appropriate cardiovascular patients, especially in cases where percutaneous intervention is an option,” says Cleveland Clinic Heart & Vascular Institute Chairman Lars Svensson, MD, PhD, who co-authored the European Heart Journal piece with Cleveland Clinic London CEO Brian Donley, MD, and Cleveland Clinic London Chief of Staff Tommaso Falcone, MD.

Dr. Svensson adds that local surgeons and other specialists will be engaged to learn the Cleveland Clinic culture and work with the Cleveland Clinic London team to provide patient-centered, collaborative care in the new facilities. “We’ll rely significantly on the local medical and surgical community, especially in view of the U.K.’s rich tradition of pioneering cardiovascular care,” he explains. He notes that Olaf Wendler, MD, PhD, FRCS, Professor of Cardiac Surgery at King’s College London, has been enlisted to lead Cleveland Clinic London’s Heart & Vascular Institute.

Expected benefits from the initiative, the article notes, include swifter access to specialist care for patients in the U.K. and for existing Cleveland Clinic patients throughout Europe, greater two-way sharing of technology and best practices, and opportunities for educational collaboration between the U.S. and U.K.

For full details on Cleveland Clinic London’s planned cardiovascular offerings, see the free-access European Heart Journal article here.