The impending shortage of cardiologists – some 16,000 by 2050 – not only calls for more medical students to enter cardiology. It also calls for those currently in practice to work smarter. One of the best ways to work smarter is through the proper use of information technology.

Of course, not many cardiologists or staff will be actively involved in IT. And that’s where the chief information officers (CIOs) come in. A report from the IBM Institute for Business Value found that CIOs wisely spend much of their time developing innovations for their organizations.

As the definition of “meaningful use” begins to solidify, it becomes apparent that there is also a need to define more innovative methods of managing the mountains of clinical data collected every day. Resources are pinched, reimbursements are a challenge and the added responsibility of outcomes measurement shines an especially bright light on the cardiovascular service line as it is often the primary revenue generator for the hospital.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the “Josh Miller HEARTS Act,” (H.R. 1380), legislation that establishes a federal grant program to help fund the placement of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) at elementary and secondary schools across the country. While also requiring school personnel to receive training in the operation of AEDs, the legislation will increase public awareness of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and the importance of AEDs in schools.

The use of a 3D inversion recovery gradient-recalled echo sequence at 3T MRI allows accurate assessment of myocardial infarction without loss of contrast-to-noise ratio compared with a standard 2D technique, according to research published this month in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Workflow simulations can be used as way of understanding how systems will be fit into workflow and specific physical work environments, according to a narrated electronic poster presentation at the 2009 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference this month in Chicago.

Specialized, coordinated emergency networks dramatically reduce time-to-treatment for patients with STEMI, according to a pooled analysis published in the April issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions.

When resuscitated cardiac arrest patients with STEMI are being evaluated in the emergency department, serious consideration should be given to emergent angiography and revascularization, regardless of neurologic status. These patients should be treated with the same urgency as patients with acute STEMI without cardiac arrest, according to a study in the February 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Three studies have found that the “triple rule-out” exam is advantageous in certain patient populations and the senior author told Cardiovascular Business News that the postprocessing involved is simple and straightforward.

Researchers from The Netherlands concluded that cardiac CT can effectively assess hemodynamically relevant coronary artery stenosis after evaluating studies that included more than 1,300 patients.

Coronary CT angiography is an excellent noninvasive imaging modality to visualize stent fractures, even fractures that are not clearly depicted by conventional angiography, according to researchers from South Korea.