Jacob Mishell, MD
“Dr. Mishell has helped create a world-class TAVR program.”
Jacob Mishell, MD, has given countless people a new lease on life through his work in helping to build the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) program in Kaiser Permanente Northern California. It has been a tremendously successful model of regional collaboration.
While valve replacement via open heart surgery is a standard treatment for many patients, the procedure is too risky for others, especially those who are elderly or frail. But many of these high-risk patients are good candidates for the minimally-invasive TAVR procedure.
In what was truly a collaborative effort, Dr. Mishell helped assemble the highly skilled team required to perform the TAVR procedure. He brought together physicians and staff from different medical centers and from the disciplines of cardiac surgery and invasive cardiology. This regional team now works closely together in a “hybrid operating room” at the San Francisco Medical Center.
The TAVR program has grown rapidly to become one of the twelve busiest programs in the country, with a procedural mortality less than half the national average.
“Dr. Mishell deserves considerable credit for assembling the regional TAVR team,” says Maria Ansari, MD, Physician-in-Chief, San Francisco. “He’s been instrumental in bringing a complicated, innovative, and important treatment to our members.”