Coronary artery calcium scoring, a test that measures the amount and pattern of calcium that has accumulated in a patient’s coronary arteries, appears to provide an early indication of a person’s long-term risk for heart disease, according to data from five studies presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 63rd Annual Scientific Session.

I had become accustomed to making the necessary tradeoffs when choosing the appropriate defibrillator for my patients and until recently thought that these choices were ones that I would always have to make. But the options have increased and matching the unique capabilities of devices, lead systems and remote monitoring has become easier now that there are more than two distinct categories of defibrillator systems available — single and double lead implants and now, the DX system.

Congress recently passed the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, which requires use of appropriate use criteria (AUC) and clinical decision support (CDS) software to get Medicare reimbursement. This will likely shift focus onto IT vendors who can supply this software. In addition, the use of CDS is part of Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements for electronic medical records (EMR), so the new Medicare requirements will move CDS up on many IT departments' priority lists.