Why HHC
Built for the heart, years ahead of the curve
Most surgery centers describe themselves in language that could apply to any facility anywhere. Heart Health Center has an actual story: a cardiovascular center that was performing complex outpatient electrophysiology well before the rest of the system caught up.
A specialized center, not a general one
Heart Health Center is a cardiovascular and cardiac electrophysiology center in Phoenix. That distinction matters more than it might sound. A center that concentrates on the heart and its rhythm system builds a kind of familiarity that a facility rotating through unrelated specialties cannot: the same team, the same equipment, the same protocols, the same class of problem, every day.
The center was developed around a physician-led outpatient cardiovascular model. Rather than adapting a general surgical facility to cardiac work, the clinical environment was designed from the beginning around how cardiovascular physicians deliver care — how a rhythm case is prepared, imaged, monitored, recovered, and discharged.
Doing it before it was mainstream
When the center opened, essentially all cardiac rhythm work in the United States happened inside hospitals. Complex electrophysiology in an ambulatory surgery center was not a recognized category. Heart Health Center developed the clinical protocols for it — selection criteria, anticoagulation management, sedation planning, imaging, observation windows, escalation pathways — and then accumulated a substantial procedural experience under them.
During the pandemic that work mattered more than anyone anticipated. With hospital capacity under strain, moving appropriate cardiac procedures out of the hospital stopped being a question of convenience and became a question of access.
The center became one of the early demonstrations that appropriately selected complex electrophysiology procedures, including atrial fibrillation ablation, could be performed safely in an ambulatory surgery center — experience that has since contributed to the broader case for outpatient electrophysiology nationally.
And then the system moved
On January 1, 2026, Medicare substantially expanded the ASC Covered Procedures List, adding hundreds of procedures for calendar year 2026 and revising its criteria to give physicians greater ability to determine the appropriate patient and the appropriate setting. Outpatient cardiovascular care became broadly accessible across the country.
Heart Health Center had been operating that model for years. What changed in 2026 was the rest of the system, not this center.
Timeline
How the center developed
2017
One of the nation's first heart-rhythm ASCs
Dr. Vijay Swarup founded Heart Health Center as a dedicated cardiovascular and electrophysiology ambulatory surgery center in Phoenix — among the first centers in the United States built specifically for heart rhythm work. At the time, almost all cardiac rhythm procedures in the country happened inside hospitals, and the outpatient model the center was built around did not yet have a name.
2020
The atrial fibrillation ablation program
Increasingly complex electrophysiology moved into the center, and the atrial fibrillation ablation program developed. Each step forward came with written protocol: patient selection criteria, anticoagulation management, sedation and airway planning, imaging, observation windows, and escalation pathways.
2020–2022
Hospitals without walls
During the pandemic, hospital capacity was the scarcest resource in medicine, and CMS opened its Hospitals Without Walls waiver so hospital services could be delivered in ambulatory surgery centers. Moving appropriate cardiac procedures out of the hospital stopped being a convenience and became a matter of access. Heart Health Center performed cardiac ablation under that waiver and published the experience, putting real outpatient safety data into the literature at the moment the field needed it.
2017–2023
One of the country's highest-volume outpatient AF programs
Over those years Heart Health Center built one of the highest-volume outpatient atrial fibrillation ablation programs in the United States, and one of the largest ASC-based electrophysiology outcomes datasets anywhere. 1,800 ablation procedures have been performed here to date.
January 1, 2026
Expanded access to outpatient procedures
Medicare substantially expanded the ASC Covered Procedures List for calendar year 2026, adding hundreds of procedures and revising the criteria to give physicians greater latitude in determining the appropriate patient and setting. The model Heart Health Center had already been operating for years became broadly available across the country.
Our Experience
Our procedural experience
Center-reported totals as of August 30, 2026. These figures describe procedure volume, not treatment success rates.
- 1,800
- Ablation procedures performed
- Performed at Heart Health Center, as reported August 30, 2026.
- 1,400
- Heart rhythm device implants
- Pacemakers, defibrillators, and other cardiac rhythm management devices.
- 1,200
- Heart catheterization procedures
- Diagnostic and interventional catheterization procedures.
Safety
Measured against national benchmarks
Complex cardiovascular work outside a hospital only makes sense if the results stand up. Heart Health Center performs well inside every threshold below.
Tamponade— AF ablation
Benchmark <0.5%
Well below targetStroke or TIA— AF ablation
Benchmark <0.3%
Well below targetMajor bleeding— All procedures
Benchmark <1.0%
Well below targetVascular complication requiring intervention
Benchmark <1.0%
Well below targetCIED infection— 12-month
Benchmark <0.5%
Well below targetUnplanned transfer
Benchmark <1.0%
Well below targetUnplanned admission within 30 days
Benchmark <2.0%
Well below target
Thresholds: ACCESS Foundation, 2026 ASC webinar series. Heart Health Center reviews these measures as part of its ongoing quality programme. Referring physicians who would like the underlying figures for a specific measure are welcome to ask.
Questions about your procedure?
Our team will confirm your date, walk you through preparation, and answer questions about insurance, sedation, and recovery.