October 1, 2014 — Heart Hospital of Austin is the first facility in Texas to implant a new miniaturized, wireless monitoring sensor to manage heart failure (HF). The CardioMEMS HF system is the first and only U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -approved HF monitoring device that has been proven to significantly reduce hospital admissions when used by physicians to manage HF.

Although most accountable care organizations have the health information technology to improve clinical quality, poor interoperability across systems and providers remains a barrier, according to an ACO survey conducted by Premier Inc. and the eHealth Initiative.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has allowed marketing of the NephroCheck test, a first-of-a-kind laboratory test to help determine if certain critically ill hospitalized patients are at risk of developing moderate to severe acute kidney injury (AKI) in the 12 hours following the administration of the test.

Claron Technology introduces support for the BlackBerry Passport for its Nil family of zero-footprint enterprise medical imaging viewers, which enable anytime, anywhere web-based review of a full range of imaging modalities and related data.

Thoratec Corporation announced that it has begun to enroll patients in the HeartMate III U.S. clinical trial.