The need for improved interoperability between healthcare IT systems and medical devices has been a growing problem in an increasingly integrated medical field. This is especially true in light of U.S. healthcare reform requirements, meaningful use demands and new rules requiring software integrations to receive reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Physicians are trained to treat patients, not to deal with IT integration issues, and many ask why they cannot access information they need from the Internet from anywhere, the same way they do on smartphones or their home computers. Until recently, this same level of connectivity has been elusive with their own hospitals’ IT systems. Over the past couple years, vendors have answered this question by launching Web-based

Cardiac ultrasound technology has advanced to keep up with several trends. These include improved workflow for greater efficiency, expanded use of qualification metrics, expanded use of 3-D echo to speed exam times and improve operator reproducibility, and expanded use of 3-D transesophageal echo (TEE) to aid guidance in the growing area of transcatheter structural heart procedures. Here are a few examples of how the newest technology is addressing these trends.

May 6, 2014 — Google Glass and its potential to improve patient care will be the focus of a first-of-its-kind special session at the 2014 Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) scientific sessions in Las Vegas.

May 6, 2014 — Siemens Healthcare announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Artis one angiography system, optimized for broad clinical utilization. The Artis one is designed for routine interventions, including revascularizations of peripheral vessel occlusions, functional tests of dialysis shunts in patients with kidney failure, diagnostic or minimally invasive angiographic treatment of narrowed coronary arteries, and pacemaker implantations.

May 6, 2014 — The National Lipid Association (NLA) recently convened an expert panel to examine various aspects of statin safety and statin tolerance. Results of the symposium findings are published this month in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology, addressing six specific statin-related safety issues including the effects of statins on cognition, diabetes risk, liver function, muscle symptoms and interactions with other drugs, and statin intolerance.