We use a Watchman™ implant procedure to lower the risk of stroke in patients who have atrial fibrillation. If you have AFib, it offers you a long-term alternative to using anticoagulants such as warfarin. The Watchman device is a small implant that’s placed into the left atrial appendage (a small sac in the top-left chamber of your heart), preventing clots from forming there. The one-time procedure lasts about an hour and is followed by an overnight hospital stay.
Candidates for the Watchman device include patients who have atrial fibrillation not caused by heart valve problems, are able to take short-term blood-thinning medications after the procedure, and are poor candidates for long-term blood-thinning medications.
Englewood Health cardiac electrophysiologists have extensive expertise with this technology. In fact, our physicians performed northern New Jersey’s first Watchman implant during the second phase of a national clinical trial in 2012, and we’ve just performed our 100th Watchman procedure.