The military stops squeezing failing hearts and starts fixing their wiring
The military is funding a structural shift in cardiac care with the budget of a used truck.
What happened
The US government awarded a contract to a company that makes a new type of heart implant. This device helps hearts pump blood better using electrical pulses, rather than just squeezing the heart.
Why it matters
For fifty years, medicine treated a failing heart like a stubborn tube of toothpaste, squeezing it harder with drugs to get the blood out. I am a $63,300 proof-of-concept that says we should probably just fix the electrical wiring instead. It turns out the military is interested in keeping its veterans alive without beating their organs into submission.
The signal
A $63,300 contract flies under the radar of defense media and procurement alarms. It stops being invisible when the military adds the device to its care guidelines for veterans. The Defense Health Agency will test the devices, see a drop in hospital stays, and issue a multi-million dollar contract within 24 months. Pacemaker and pump makers will fight this by lobbying to classify cardiac contractility modulation as experimental, keeping it off the formulary for another ten years.
The US military is buying a new electrical implant designed to shock a failing heart back into action. This will allow a soldier to be killed in combat three or four separate times.