Ablation is moving to new settings. The workflows are being written now.

Action Potential Innovation is the consulting practice of Ian Woollett, MD, a cardiac electrophysiologist with more than twenty years in the EP lab. The premise is simple: the biggest gains left in ablation will not come from new devices. They will come from redesigning how the tools, teams, and procedures already in the room fit together.

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What we do

Four ways to engage

Workflow consulting

Procedural workflow design for EP programs in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers: imaging strategy, disposable cost discipline, team structure, and throughput.

Industry advisory

Clinical and strategic advisory for imaging, mapping, and ablation technology companies, from early development through workflow integration and training.

Speaking and education

Conference sessions, grand rounds, and program-level education on procedural imaging, ablation economics, and the shift of EP to outpatient settings.

Research collaboration

Study design and site leadership grounded in two decades as an investigator on more than forty industry and NIH trials.

The flagship example

AF ablation without the ICE catheter

AF ablation in the US relies almost universally on intracardiac echocardiography for procedural imaging. The ICE catheter is a single-use disposable costing $2,000 to $3,500 per case, and that cost is being built into every new ablation program as if it were unavoidable.

It is not. We developed, refined, and published a team-based workflow in which real-time 3D transesophageal echocardiography, performed by a specially trained dedicated imager under continuous physician supervision, serves as the primary intraprocedural imaging modality.

The result is superior anatomical visualization compared with the 2D ICE imaging most programs use, a guaranteed per-case saving from eliminating the catheter, and a workflow that transfers cleanly to the ambulatory surgery setting, where AF ablation volume is now headed.

Peer-reviewed feasibility

128 consecutive procedures, median 40-minute procedure time, 87.5% same-day discharge, no major acute complications. J Interv Card Electrophysiol, 2026. Read the study and the accompanying editorial.

Routine practice, not a demonstration

In daily use since early 2025, now hundreds of consecutive cases with strong safety outcomes.

Adopted beyond our center

A second, unaffiliated US center has adopted the workflow, with publication to follow. The model travels.

"Ambulatory programs evaluating their cost structures, international programs facing real resource constraints, and large U.S. systems scrutinizing per-case disposable spend now have a practical workflow to consider."

Accompanying editorial, J Interv Card Electrophysiol, June 2026

The method

TEE instead of ICE is one answer. The method is the point.

The imaging workflow gets the attention, but it came out of a repeatable discipline that applies to any part of the ablation care pathway.

Cost per case is a clinical variable

Measure it the way you measure outcomes. A program that cannot see its per-case economics cannot improve them, and most programs have never looked.

Every disposable earns its place

Catheters, patches, and single-use tools enter a workflow by default and stay by habit. Each one should justify itself against an alternative on every case.

Teams scale. Heroics do not.

Durable workflow advantages are built into trained teams and standard protocols, not into the exceptional performance of one physician on a good day.

Design for where care is going

EP ablation is shifting to ambulatory surgery centers. Workflows designed for that setting, including radiation reduction and lean anesthesia models, will define the next decade of practice.

See the imaging

Intraprocedural 3D TEE, in motion

Clips from real cases showing what real-time 3D TEE delivers during ablation: transseptal guidance, catheter-tissue contact, and anatomy that 2D imaging simply does not show. Three clips are drawn from the library on each visit.

View more examples Video library on Dropbox
About

Ian Woollett, MD, FACC, FHRS

Ian Woollett is a cardiac electrophysiologist in Norfolk, Virginia, where he directs the EP lab at one of the region's highest-volume heart programs. He has practiced invasive electrophysiology for more than twenty years, spanning the full range of ablation and device procedures: AF and VT ablation, hybrid procedures with cardiac surgery, left atrial appendage occlusion, and conduction system pacing.

For two decades he has been a trusted site investigator for the device industry, serving as principal or co-investigator on more than forty trials, including first-in-US feasibility studies and FDA pivotal trials for technologies that are now standard of care. His research has been published in Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Heart Rhythm.

He founded Action Potential Innovation because the most valuable innovations he has seen in twenty years of trials did not come from new devices. They came from redesigning how the existing tools, people, and procedures fit together. That is the work this practice does.

Consulting services are provided through Action Potential Innovation LLC and are independent of Dr. Woollett's hospital and academic affiliations.

Ian Woollett, MD
  • Training: University of Washington (medicine), Yale (cardiology), Columbia (electrophysiology)
  • Board certified: Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology, Cardiovascular Disease
  • Fellow: American College of Cardiology, Heart Rhythm Society
  • Leadership: EP Lab Director; former Chair of Electrophysiology; former President of Medical Staff
  • Faculty: Clinical Assistant Professor, Macon and Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University
  • Research: 40+ trials as site PI, co-PI, or sub-investigator, 2005 to present
Contact

Start a conversation

ian@actionpotentialinnovation.com

Norfolk, Virginia

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