Friday, September 03 2010
Massachusetts State Auditor Joe DeNucci has reported that the state's Medicaid program, MassHealth, may be losing millions of dollars due to unnecessary advanced imaging services, such as CT and MRI exams.
Thursday, September 02 2010
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, Institute for Radioelements in Fleurus, Belgium, and Ion Beam Applications in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, three major distributors of radioisotopes for medical exams in Europe, have partnered to secure the supply of technetium-99 (Tc-99m) beyond 2015.
Thursday, September 02 2010
Rates of obesity and diabetes in California are well above the national targets and goals. In the state, costs related to obesity are reported to be $21 billion, and as the rate of diabetes jumped 26 percent from 2001 to 2007, direct costs related to the comorbidity have been reported to soak up $24 billion, according to the results of the most recent California Health Interview Survey.
Thursday, September 02 2010
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Sept. 2 that Cincinnati and Detroit are the two final pilot communities selected under the new Beacon Community Program that is using health IT to help tackle leading health problems in communities across the U.S.
Wednesday, September 01 2010
Control of atrial fibrillation (AF) was not achieved in more than 40 percent of the AF patients included in a 10,000 patient REALISE-AF registry, according to a study presented Sept. 1 at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress in Stockholm.
Wednesday, September 01 2010
Cardiac MRI revealed cardiac adaptations, including a balanced increase in left ventricular and right ventricular myocardial mass, wall thickness, ventricular dilation and diastolic function, among elite triathletes, according to a study published in the October edition of Radiology.
Wednesday, September 01 2010
There are increasing demands for electrophysiology (EP) professionals as a result of shifting demographic trends, evolving healthcare reform policies and improved procedural outcomes, according to a workforce study published in the September issue of the Heart Rhythm Journal. The analysis also found substantial growth in the overall volume and complexity of cardiac procedures performed in the past decade.
Tuesday, August 31 2010
High heart rate is a risk factor in heart failure (HF), and selective lowering of heart rates with ivabradine improves cardiovascular outcomes in HF, based on results from two arms of the SHIFT trial, presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress this week in Stockholm, and simultaneously published in the Lancet. However, an accompanying editorial suggests that these findings do not yet warrant a paradigm shift.
Tuesday, August 31 2010
The number of patient visits accommodated by the radiographic fluoroscopy (RF) departments increased at a rate of 3.5 percent per year between 2004 to 2009, while the total RF installed base declined at a rate of 2 to 3 percent per year over the past decade, according to a report issued by market research firm IMV Medical Information Division.
Monday, August 30 2010
Among patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) or atrial fibrillation (AF), the effect of clopidogrel as compared with placebo is consistent, irrespective of CYP2C19 loss-of-function carrier status, according to substudies of the CURE and the ACTIVE A trials presented this week at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) conference in Stockholm, and simultaneously published online Aug. 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Monday, August 30 2010
The Certification Commission for Health IT (CCHIT) has been recognized by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT as an Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) under the initial certification program created to certify that EHRs are capable of meeting the criteria to support meaningful use and qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Monday, August 30 2010
Treating acute coronary syndrome patients with ticagrelor (Brilinta), rather than clopidogrel (Plavix) produces better results, irrespective of CYP2C19 and ABCB1 polymorphisms, and at the same time eradicates the need for genetic testing prior to dual-antiplatelet treatment, according to a substudy of the PLATO trial presented this week at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress in Stockholm, and simultaneously published in the Lancet.
Sunday, August 29 2010
The California State Assembly in a bipartisan vote of 70-4 has approved SB 1237, which seeks to establish protocols and safeguards to protect patients from excess radiation exposure during CT scans by requiring radiation dosage levels be recorded on the scanned image and in a patient’s health records and that radiation overdoses be reported to patients, their treating physicians and the California Department of Public Health.
Friday, August 27 2010
The repair of the High Flux Reactor (HFR) in Petten, the Netherlands, is proceeding well and the reactor is expected to achieve the first HFR Full Power Day (45 MW) on Sept. 9, according to the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group of the Netherlands.
Thursday, August 26 2010
While Agfa-Gevaert posted 8.7 percent increase in revenues in the 2010 second quarter compared with the previous year’s second quarter, its Agfa HealthCare unit only posted slightly higher revenues—0.3 percent—over the 2009 second quarter.
Thursday, August 26 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed revisions for Medicare coverage to include ventricular assist devices (VAD) as a destination therapy for patients with end-stage heart failure who are not candidates for transplant.
Thursday, August 26 2010
With the advent of 64-slice CT, coronary CT angiography (CCTA) exams of low-risk patients presenting to the emergency department with chest pain are feasible given the nearly 100 percent negative predictive value of the test, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) published in the Aug. 17 issue of Circulation.
Wednesday, August 25 2010
Average annual increases in retail prices charged for widely used, brand-name prescription drugs have continued to consistently exceed the rate of general inflation, based on a report commissioned by the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP).
Wednesday, August 25 2010
For certain subsets of patients--those at an “intermediate risk” for cardiovascular (CV) disease and who have low LDL cholesterol levels and elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive proteins (hsCRP)--the use of rosuvastatin (Crestor, AstraZeneca) significantly decreases CV risk, according to the results of a substudy of the JUPITER trial published in the September edition of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality Outcomes.
Wednesday, August 25 2010
The Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has scheduled another extended outage for next spring, as part of the Chalk River Laboratories, National Research Universal (NRU) reactor's return to service activities.
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Current screening recommendations for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) fail to target some people, including women and nonsmokers, in which a large number of ruptures and deaths occur, according to a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery. Use of a new high-yield screening algorithm can expand the target population for screening and help to increase the detection of AAAs, senior study author Giampaolo Greco, PhD, told Cardiovascular Business News.
Medical imaging overutilization--a growing concern in the U.S.--exposes patients to unnecessary radiation, while also adding to rising healthcare costs, according to a study published online Aug. 24 in Radiology. In an interview, William R. Hendee, PhD, lead author, reviewed various methods by which medical imaging could be curtailed.
After 585 patients at the St. Joseph Medical Center (SJMC) in Towson, Md., received word that their cardiac stent procedures may have been unwarranted, Maryland attorneys filed a 19-page lawsuit against the facility alleging that Mark G. Midei, MD, director of the SJMC cath lab violated the Maryland Medical Practice Act. The court documents accuse Midei of performing “hundreds, if not thousands, of unnecessary cardiac stent procedures on patients.” Now, this case and others like it have left most wondering what this will mean for the industry.
As people age, their stem cells also age, diminishing their functionality. Many studies conducted to determine the efficacy of cardiac stem cell therapy have used donor cells from younger patients. These cells are healthy and readily adopt the cardiogenic phenotype researchers are interested in. The problem with that approach, however, is that in clinical trials, researchers want to use patients' stem cells, but they can't expect to have similar results as with younger donor cells. The answer is to find a way to manipulate autologous cells so they regain their "youthful" function.Author: Atta Behfar, MD
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) EHR incentive payments are not considered reimbursement for money expended on EHR technology, but are intended to offset the cost associated with adoption and ongoing meaningful use, according to CMS during an Aug. 12 webinar.
Funding incentives for EHR use is the main goal of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) meaningful use initiative, and there are incentive programs for both hospitals and eligible professionals, according to Elizabeth Holland, health insurance specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services, who spoke during a CMS-sponsored webinar Aug. 8.