Medtronic Welcomes Our Community To Its Headquarters!
Written By: Adam Pick, Patient Advocate, Author & Website Founder
Published: February 7, 2024
It’s not every day that I get invited to visit one of the world’s largest medical device companies. So, when Medtronic extended that invitation, I jumped on a plane bound for Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The goal of my visit was to share and to discuss the challenges and the opportunities of heart valve disease patients now and in the future.
First Up… Medtronic Leadership
The day got off to a very quick start at 7am when I met with Nina Goodheart, the President of Medtronic’s Structural Heart and Aortic Operating Unit.
Nina and I wasted no time discussing several important topics including patient centricity, patient education, shared decision making, and the future of heart valve therapy and care pathways.
I really appreciated the time with Nina. In particular, it was fascinating to learn about Medtronic’s approach to the lifetime management of heart valve disease through the development of safe, effective and innovative products like the Evolut transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
Medtronic’s Long History With Heart Valves
Next up… Jenny Cotton, Senior Director of Market Development, shared Medtronic’s extraordinary history with me.
While walking along its Wall of Innovations (see below), I learned that Medtronic was founded in 1949 by Earl Bakken, a graduate student in electrical engineering, and his brother-in-law, Palmer Hermundslie, an enterprising engineer. The company began in a garage as a repair business focused on medical electronics. The founders named it Medtronic.
With over 90,000 employees in 150 countries, Medtronic now holds more than 49,000 patents designed to treat 70 different health conditions including cardiovascular, diabetes, medical surgery (e.g. gastrointestinal) and neuroscience. Click here to learn more about Medtronic’s history.
Medtronic-Hall Mechanical Heart Valve (1977)
Specific to heart valves… The company released its first heart valve replacement, the Medtronic-Hall mechanical valve in 1977. This device leveraged a tilting-disc design and was on the market for nearly twenty-five years.
Today, Medtronic helps many patients in our community with surgical heart valve replacements, transcatheter valve replacements, annuloplasty rings, and other devices to treat cardiac conditions including atrial fibrillation.
Educating Patients About TAVR
As you have seen at HeartValveSurgery.com, there is a bit of confusion specific to the treatment of aortic valve stenosis using surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) and transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).
For that reason, I connected with Jenny Cotton and Terri Buehler, Market Development Consultant. Together, we brainstormed new approaches and initiatives to better educate patients in our community about the treatment of aortic stenosis.
Raising Awareness to Adult Congenital Heart Disease
The next stop during the Medtronic visit was an eye-opening conversation about Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) with Andrea Lee, Global Marketing Director, and Greg Webb, Senior Marketing Manager.
If you are not aware, ACHD is an umbrella term for cardiac conditions you’re born with that affect your heart’s structure. “Congenital” means that the defect forms while the fetus develops and is present at birth. Those disorders include blood vessel defects, atrial septal defects and heart valve defects.
Unfortunately, many ACHD patients are under-treated and/or “fall-out” of the care pathway which can be very dangerous. I’m a perfect example. Although I was diagnosed with a heart murmur when I was five years old, I stopped monitoring my bicuspid aortic valve disease because my doctor told me that I would not need surgery until I was in my 40s. Well, I forgot to get an echocardiogram for three years in my late 20s. During that time, my aortic valve disease became severe and I needed surgery at the age of 33.
That said, I look forward to expanding our content to help educate and empower patients, their families and friends about ACHD.
My Time to Share
While I’m not a huge fan of public speaking, I did my best to help Medtronic learn about all the wonderful people – the patients, the family members, the doctors, the physician assistants, and the nurses – in our community.
So, I gave a quick presentation that was designed to show the different ways in which HeartValveSurgery.com has evolved during the past 17 years to address your needs throughout the lifetime management of heart valve disease.
Medtronic Readies for Heart Valve Day
As you may know, February 22 is National Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day. This event, which originally launched in 2017, is an annual day dedicated to raising awareness about heart valve disease — its risk factors, symptoms, detection, and treatment — to reduce the burden of the disease.
That said, I am happy to pre-announce that Medtronic and HeartValveSurgery.com will be hosting a live and free patient webinar titled, “The 8 Must Know Facts About Heart Valve Disease” on February 22. Click here for advanced webinar registration.
Medtronic has actively begun sharing this special event at its headquarters and to cardiac centers across the country. I was amazed that, as I was walking through Medtronic, I looked up and saw an announcement for the Heart Valve Day Webinar on a monitor above my head.
Then… I couldn’t believe my eyes when the Medtronic team brought out a plate of “Valve Disease Day” cookies. How fun! (Fyi, the cookies were beyond yummy.)
Thanks Medtronic!!!
On behalf of our patient community, I want to extend a tremendous “THANK YOU!” to Medtronic for creating life-saving products for so many people.
I also want to thank the Medtronic Structural Heart Team for supporting the HeartValveSurgery.com community with medical devices and educational initiatives that are helping patients with heart valve disease.
Keep on tickin’ Medtronic!
Adam
Written by Adam Pick
- Patient & Website Founder
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