Sunnybrook's new cardiac surgery hotline

A new hotline – 416-700-HART – answered by the cardiac surgeon on call is now available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing a form of one-stop shopping for those physicians whose patients may have heart health concerns.

With some of Canada's top cardiovascular surgeons, cardiologists and interventional cardiologists and a unique, "Heart Team" approach to case review, Schulich Heart Centre is able to quickly triage patients and provide the highest standard of care. Cardiac care is one of those areas of the health system that works fast and where wait times for consultation are measured in minutes, hours and days – not weeks or months.

Schulich Heart Centre provides a full service of open, closed and interventional procedures. It also performs operations not found anywhere else in Toronto – including minimally-invasive beating-heart surgery, suture-less aortic valve replacement and minimally invasive valve surgery. 

The team also performs Transcatheter Aortic Heart Valve (TAVI), an alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement for those patients considered at high risk for open-heart surgery – and for whom there are no other interventional options.

The Cardiac Surgery Hotline service is aimed at providing better access for patients, through their family physicians and cardiologists.