What we do
Each year, UCSF's Advanced Heart Failure Comprehensive Care Center (AHF CCC) treats and evaluates over 3000 patients for heart failure.
We are recognized internationally for our expertise in diagnosing and treating advanced heart failure. The Advanced Heart Failure Comprehensive Care Center Team was the recipient of the 2024 PRIDE Experience Award.
Our multidisciplinary team includes Advanced Heart Failure Cardiologists, Cardiac Surgeons, Advanced Practice Providers, Registered Nurses, Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians, Social Workers, Psychiatry, Financial Counselors, Medical Assistants and Administrative Coordinators – all team members play a unique and critical role in your care.
Your partner in caring for your heart health across the continuum
From your very first visit to the UCSF Advanced Heart Failure Comprehensive Care Center, our team will provide education and support to your and your caregivers throughout the entire process. We have four distinct clinics that care for patients across the spectrum of disease. As a Patient in our this clinic you can expect to be cared for by will be cared for by your cardiologist, and/or your heart surgeon, along with an experienced team of nurse practitioners, nurses, and pharmacists to ensure you are getting the care and treatment that is right for you.
Our step-by-step process
- Our Heart Failure Disease Management clinic provides care to patients that may be newly diagnosed with heart failure and to those who have been managing their for some time. A mainstay of treatment for heart failure is a combination of medications that when given together in combination, can work to improve your heart function, and keep it stable. In addition to medications, there are many other ways to manage your heart health at home including diet, exercise and close self-monitoring. Your team will help provide you with the tools and education to best support you.
- Our Advanced Therapies Evaluation clinic provides care to patients who are not responding to traditional medical therapy and those that have progressed to end-stage heart disease and are being considered for a heart transplant. Our team of experts will evaluate you and perform additional testing that is needed. In addition to your cardiologist, patients cared for in this clinic will be paired with one of our expert nurse coordinators, who will educate you about the process of undergoing a heart transplant evaluation and closely supervise and assist in your through this evaluation phase and partner closely with you and your family or caregiver.
- Following your Heart Transplant, you will be followed very closely in the heart transplant clinic. Education will be provided to you in great detail and reinforced to ensure you and your family or caregiver understand the very detailed instructions that you must follow in order to take care of your new heart. In addition to your cardiologist and heart transplant surgeon, you will partner with a heart transplant nurse coordinator who will closely monitor you for the life of your heart transplant and will be a primary contact for you and your family or caregiver.
- The Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS) clinic manages and cares for all patients who have been implanted with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). Patients with an implanted LVAD are monitored very closely by our cardiologists and MCS nurse coordinators. Patients with an implanted LVAD are on anticoagulation (blood thinners) and require close management and you will be assigned a MCS nurse heart transplant nurse coordinator who will closely monitor you for the life of your LVAD heart transplant and will be a primary contact for you and your family or caregiver.
Our programs | Heart Transplant, MCS, LVAD
Heart Transplant Program
Mechanical Circulatory Support
Ventricular Assist Device