Right from the start, GVM Care & Research has stood out for its focus on Highly Specialised Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, creating the first private Italian Cardiac Surgery hub at Cotignola as early as 1979.
The Group currently consists of a network of European health facilities, which favour innovative techniques and the use of specialised hybrid operating theatres, and handles roughly 15 percent of Cardiac Surgery operations in Italy.
The strength of GVM consists in handling diagnosis and care with methods that reduce the trauma of the operations. By adopting well-established minimally invasive and nano-invasive protocols not only is the access route minimised, with much smaller incisions (from 3 to 5 cm) to the intercostal space replacing traditional sternotomy (opening of the thorax), the need for Extracorporeal Circulation (ECC) - and therefore the need to stop the heart - can often be avoided. Such protocols are especially suitable for patients who are particularly frail both physically and psychologically, and they offer excellent clinical and aesthetic results.
The GVM medical team refers to the Heart Team, an important method for the management of cardiac and cardiac surgery patients: having both cardiac surgeons and haemodynamic specialists in the operating theatre has, in fact, allowed for the further development of procedures that aim to integrate the know-how and competencies of both specialisations - in clinical conditions that have been evaluated beforehand. This means that decisions regarding the most complex cases are no longer handled by a single physician, but by a multidisciplinary team composed of cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, cardiac anaesthesiologists and other specialists.
Cardiac Surgery has led to the development of the so-called Heart Cycle, a complete therapy that incorporates Interventional Cardiology, Anaesthetic Services, the Resuscitation Unit and post-operative Intensive, Sub-intensive and Cardiac Care Units, which operate 24/7. This way each patient receives the best treatment for the given pathology, with the lowest risk and highest percentage of success possible.