If you have a pacemaker, you know how much it’s changed your life, but many people in low and middle-income countries don’t have access to that same treatment.
The reasons are simple: pacemakers are expensive, and the technical expertise to properly place them can also be limited.
Pacemakers are usually placed under the skin with wires that run through blood vessels to the heart. They sense when a person’s heart isn’t beating correctly and send a small pulse of electricity to keep it on track.
Pacemakers last for years and often outlast their owners, which is why the University of Michigan has been accepting donated pacemakers and reconditioning them for reuse abroad.
“The mission of project ‘My Heart Your Heart’ is to assist those patients and underserved countries who cannot afford a pacemaker,” said Eric Puroll. “We are able to provide that free of charge.”
The program has sent reconditioned pacemakers to hundreds of patients in cases where there was no other alternative for care. But U of M is now leading an international clinical trial to test the impact of sending recycled pacemakers abroad for standard use.
The program’s medical director says they are trying to create a blueprint for the rest of the world.
“What we’re anticipating is that as this clinical trial is released, if it shows positive results, we’ll be able to scale this up and create a nonprofit that will be self-sustaining and allow for large-scale pacemaker reprocessing and donations to patients in low-income countries,” said Dr. Thomas Crawford, University of Michigan Cardiology.
“What we are doing is we are randomizing patients to a new device or a reconditioned device and making sure that the outcomes in both arms of the clinical trial are the same by the end,” Puroll said.
Puroll said the mission for him is personal.
“It means everything to me to be able to give back to someone who can’t afford the same care that I can, and we take it for granted,” Puroll said.
The program has actually been running for more than a decade. In the past, the pacemakers came from Michigan funeral homes, but it has expanded, and now funeral homes in all 50 states have donated pacemakers to “My Heart, Your Heart” for the project.
The pacemakers are only sent out of the country; they are not used for patients in the U.S.
Frank - how much processing is needed to “Recondition” a pacemaker?
Quite a bit is done when it comes to reconditioning a pacemaker, as they have to be checked for their remaining battery life and go through tests for their function. Then, there’s also the apparent cleaning and sterilization process. This is really one of the most sensible reuse programs I’ve ever seen, and over the history of the program, they have seen exceptional results.
