Technology

HealthMed Holdings completed validation on a blood test that aims to identify individuals who are at risk of a heart attack and may be missed by conventional tests. These individuals have no symptoms and frequently have normal standard blood cholesterol profiles, but are at significant risk of having a heart attack in the near term. The group is actively commercializing the test.

Home February 18, 2014
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Carestream is sponsoring an executive panel discussion at the HIMSS 2014 meeting, Feb. 25, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Room 202C at the Orlando Convention Center. The title is “Executive Perspective: How to Achieve Efficient Enterprise Data Management” and the session is open to all HIMSS attendees. Jennifer Horowitz, Senior Director of Research for HIMSS Analytics, will be the moderator.

Home February 17, 2014
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TAVR Heart valve repair Hybrid OR
Feature

A team of interventional cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute-Texas Medical Center performed Texas’ first transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) under conscious sedation using the Edwards Sapien valve.

Home February 17, 2014
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Technology

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted AliveCor Inc. over-the-counter (OTC) clearance for the AliveCor Heart Monitor, a single-channel ECG (electrocardiogram) recorder, previously available by prescription only. The device is available for pre-order purchase with shipments beginning in March.

Home February 13, 2014
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Technology

Wolters Kluwer Health, a global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, will make available at HIMSS13 Annual Conference & Exhibition the UpToDate. Anywhere. The product enables healthcare enterprises to improve patient care by equipping clinicians with anytime/anywhere access to comprehensive, evidence-based, clinical decision support through the UpToDate mobile app.

Home February 13, 2014
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Research from the University of Iowa supports the claim that tele-emergency services can extend emergency care in rural hospitals. The study was published in the February edition of Health Affairs. Tele-emergency is the urgent care component of telehealth, services consisting of diagnosis, treatment, assessment, monitoring, communications and education of medical conditions via digital technologies like videoconferencing. Telehealth can deliver important medical services where they are needed most, and remove barriers of time, distance and limited health care providers. This includes remote, rural areas and medically underserved urban communities.

Home February 11, 2014
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Fluke Biomedical, a manufacturer of biomedical test instruments, acquired Unfors RaySafe. Unfors RaySafe produces quality assurance devices for diagnostic x-ray including real time dose monitoring systems for medical personnel and patient dose tracking software solutions.

Home February 10, 2014
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radiation dose management, monitoring
Feature | Dave Fornell

Better management of X-ray radiation doses starts with recording and tracking each exposure patients receive. Dose tracking has come to the forefront of medicine in recent years with the realization that medical imaging has doubled the public’s exposure to ionizing radiation since the 1980s, largely due to the rapid expansion of computed tomography (CT) and minimally invasive procedures guided by angiography.

Home February 10, 2014
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A contrast MRI can predict which heart patients with atrial fibrillation are most likely to benefit from catheter ablation, according to a multi-center study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Home February 10, 2014
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Massachusetts General Hospital conducted a biomarker-guided therapy study of chronic heart failure patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction over a 10-month period. Results of “Head-to-Head Comparison of Serial Soluble ST2, Growth Differentiation Factor-15 and Highly Sensitive Troponin T Measurement in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure” were published in JACC: Heart Failure. The report demonstrated that of all biomarkers evaluated, only serial testing of ST2 enhanced prognostic information over baseline concentrations and predicted change in left ventricular function.

Home February 10, 2014
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Traditional fingerstick screening for glucose and lipids is proving inadequate when identifying near-term cardiovascular risk in employed populations, according to Jake Orville, CEO of Cleveland HeartLab (CHL). This position is supported by data from the American Heart Association. AHA reported 50 percent of all heart attacks and strokes occur in individuals with normal cholesterol and – for approximately 30 percent of patients with cardiovascular disease – their first sign of disease is death.

Home February 10, 2014
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Achieving real quality improvement and reducing costs means re-evaluating what constitutes value, according to a new paper e-published in the journal Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions (CCI). A new formula to define value, as presented in the paper, equates “real value” with appropriateness together with clinically defined outcomes and patient-expected outcomes relative to costs.

Home February 10, 2014
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On-X Life Technologies Inc. received CE marking for an expanded labeling claim of its On-X Prosthetic Heart Valve. The company may market its mechanical heart valve in Europe with areduced requirement for the use of blood-thinning drugs such as warfarin. The On-X Plus 1.5 Aortic Heart Valve allows patients to be managed at INR (international normalized ratio) levels as low as 1.5.

Home February 10, 2014
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Aetna issued a positive coverage policy for long-term continuous monitoring of patients with suspected heart arrhythmias, which includes use of the iRhythm Technologies’ ZIO Service. The new policy now makes iRhythm’s solution – comprised of the ZIO Patch, proprietary algorithms and the ZIO report – available as a potential covered service for the insurer’s medical members.

Home February 10, 2014
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Scientists at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai may have developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human clinical trial patients. Mount Sinai researchers generated their engineered cardiac tissue from human embryonic stem cells. The resulting muscle has remarkable similarities to native heart muscle, including the ability to beat and contract like the human heart. This research study was highlighted as the cover story of the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

Home February 07, 2014
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