A paperclip‑sized wireless sensor that tracks pressures inside the heart–lung circulation has been recommended by NICE for routine use across the NHS in England, in a move expected to shift heart‑failure management from hospital clinics to patients’ homes.
The CardioMEMS HF System from Abbott is implanted in an artery between the heart and lung during a minimally invasive procedure. Once in place, people with chronic heart failure take daily readings by lying on a special pillow that powers the sensor and transmits pulmonary artery pressure data to their clinical team, enabling medication to be adjusted before symptoms escalate and potentially avoiding emergency admissions.
NICE’s final guidance endorses CardioMEMS for adults with chronic heart failure who have already been hospitalized and are at risk of further admissions, citing evidence from three randomised trials showing a 34% reduction in heart‑failure hospitalisations compared with usual care.
“This technology offers a real opportunity to improve care for people living with chronic heart failure. By enabling early detection of problems and timely medication adjustments, it has the potential to reduce emergency hospital admissions and help people manage their condition more effectively from the comfort of their own home.” — Said Dr Anastasia Chalkidou, HealthTech Programme Director at NICE.
Heart failure affects around 920,000 people in the UK and accounts for about 1 million hospital bed days each year – roughly 2% of all NHS inpatient stays – with costs estimated at £2 billion annually.
Internationally, CardioMEMS is already a mature technology. First approved by the US FDA in 2014 for New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class III patients with a recent heart‑failure hospitalisation, later indication was expanded to include earlier‑stage Class II patients and those with elevated natriuretic peptides, adding a further 1.2 million eligible people in the US alone.
Abbott reports that more than 40,000 patients worldwide have now received the implant since that initial approval.
The guidance is a signal to other European markets that invasive PA‑pressure monitoring is a cost‑effective option. Europe’s hemodynamic monitoring devices market is about 434 million USD in 2025, within a global market of 1.6 billion USD set to nearly double to 3.1 billion USD by 2035. CardioMEMS occupies a small but high‑growth corner of that space
