Cardiovascular Business invited five luminaries in the field of interventional cardiology to engage in a discussion about stents, including the choice to use PCI over CABG, DES versus BMS, a specific stent over contracting and the radial approach versus the femoral approachalways with an eye toward running a better practice.
Facilities today compete with each other to attract patients, produce state and federally mandated quality metrics, and live in an unstable reimbursement environment. The days of collecting and storing clinical and patient data in disparate information systems are over.
The debate within cath labs about the most effective therapy for postprocedural closures might be determined by the fiscal bottom line, in lieu of more clear-cut safety evidence.
While your facility likely has robust measures in place to dodge contamination, recent developments provide a valuable reminder to examine current practices.
Move over ischemia, the future for nuclear cardiology could include SPECT imaging of heart failure patients to determine if they are at risk of sudden cardiac death and should receive an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).
Measuring fractional flow reserve (FFR) has been available as a diagnostic tool for over a decade, but many cardiologists are only now starting to realize the full value of the technique.
Beyond covering the uninsured, redesign of the healthcare delivery system is essential. Patients and physicians have not been served by the cost and volume controls that have occurred over the past decade and the current escalation of healthcare costs is not sustainable.
