The Heart Center at the Hadassah Medical Center is the first in Israel to utilize a new technology to reverse electrical damage in the heart using the heart’s natural electrical system.

The new technology, called “His Pacing,” has been developed over the past few years. It works with the heart’s “Bundle of His,” a collection of heart muscle cells that are specialized for electrical conduction. His Pacing is comprised of a collection of pacing fibers that are placed right at the base of the ventricles of the heart. By attaching a single electrode to the Bundle of His, cardiologists activate the ventricles using the heart’s natural wiring system. Sometimes, the technique leads not only to a reversal of the conduction damage, but also to improvement of overall heart function.

Traditionally, pacemakers are used to correct abnormal rhythms, using tiny electrical pulses to “pace” the heart artificially. The pulses are emitted by an electrode placed on the tip of thin leads that are positioned via a vein into the right side of the heart.

If one of the heart chambers misses a beat or beats too slowly, pulses of low-level electricity are delivered to the heart wall. Pacing leads to heart muscle contraction through cell to cell conduction, rather than through the heart’s native wiring.