© 2024 HMP Global. All Rights Reserved.

Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and/or participants and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of EP Lab Digest or HMP Global, their employees, and affiliates.

Dr Jason Zagrodzky discusses his session ahead of Heart Rhythm 2024, which takes place May 16-19, 2024.

Please introduce yourself and your focus of work.

My name is Dr Jason Zagrodzky. I am an electrophysiologist practicing in Austin, Texas, and part of a bigger practice called Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia. My area of interest is ablation, and more specifically, the efficient operation of an EP lab.

What can you tell us about your presentation at Heart Rhythm 2024? 

As you know, this is a very exciting and challenging time during our field of electrophysiology in that there is data coming out talking about the possibility of migrating EP procedures into an outpatient setting called a surgery center. The purpose of my talk is to discuss the feasibility as well as some of the logistical and financial challenges that face physicians as they consider that move. 

What is the feasibility and safety of AF ablation in an ambulatory outpatient setting? Could this be the next frontier in catheter ablation for AF?

I think it's definitely the next frontier for catheter ablation and atrial fibrillation. Over the course of the last 15 years, we've really been focused on improving the efficacy and safety of the ablation procedure as well as streamlining the procedure itself, including entry of patients into that setting. One thing we realize in electrophysiology is that the number of patients that need access to this care is dramatically greater than the possibility of serving all those patients with existing infrastructure, and so ideas like migrating patients into a surgery center setting predominantly revolve around the idea of improving access for patients by increasing the number of EP labs and streamlining the process so that more patients can be treated in a shorter period of time. I think that there is tremendous pressure on our current system to move in that direction. I think that it's not really a question of if it is going to happen, but a question of when that will happen. 

What are the take-home messages you would like viewers to leave with?

One of the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was that it gave us a brief opportunity to investigate the feasibility of ablation, particularly for more complex arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation in a surgery center, because there was a temporary pause in the rules for CMS that did not allow that before, and during that timeframe it was allowed. So, we did collect data and perform those sorts of procedures in a surgery center, which demonstrated feasibility comparable to the inpatient setting. 

What are you looking forward to at Heart Rhythm 2024?

I think the Heart Rhythm Society meeting is always so great, because it allows us to connect with colleagues who frequently we've only been talking to on the phone or through emails and haven't seen sometimes in more than a year, and it’s a great opportunity to reconnect and hear new ideas, especially in areas that we may not have thought about before.

The transcripts have been edited for clarity and length.