Months after the U.S. FDA approved a device with the potential to close the source of many atrial fibrillation-related strokes, hospitals, cardiologists and patients find themselves in a holding pattern increasingly common for newly emerging therapies: They are waiting for the CMS to issue a national coverage determination for LAA occlusion.
One morning last year, a patient checked into a hospital in Canada as the first TAVR case of the day, and they were discharge by that evening. It was an eyebrow-raising feat for a procedure that typically requires several days of hospitalization.
“Time is brain,” physicians say. As they ponder new data on acute stroke intervention with stent retrievers, many are advocating for new systems and a team-based approach modeled after the successful door-to-balloon time protocols that have vastly improved heart attack outcomes.
There’s a new executive taking a seat in hospital boardrooms across the country. Responding to ACA mandates that tie patient satisfaction to reimbursement, hospitals are recruiting CXOs to take charge of a patient experience mission that prioritizes the expectations of patients and families.
Making the change to structured reporting in the cath lab is not easy, simple, fast or fun. But it can be done, according to interventional cardiologists who have taken the challenge and succeeded.
The merger of Pittsburgh’s WPAHS and insurance giant Highmark is a sign of the times and the start of a trend, says Tony G. Farah, MD, CMO of Allegheny Health Network (AHN), now an integrated healthcare delivery and finance system.
Appropriate use criteria (AUC) have been identified as a tool to reduce “inappropriate” imaging tests without intruding on the physician–patient relationship.
For patients with cardiovascular disease, the cost of not taking prescribed medications can be worse outcomes, increased hospitalization and even death. Nevertheless, about half of patients who are prescribed statins stop taking them within a year.
