February 20, 2012 — U.S. Senate and House legislators have reached a “doc fix” agreement this week to prevent slashing payments to physicians treating Medicare patients. A law was to take effect at the beginning of March would have reduced reimbursements by 27 percent.

February 20, 2012 — BG Medicine, Inc. announced positive results from its pivotal validation study for the CardioSCORE diagnostic test, previously known by the development name AMIPredict.

February 20, 2012 — As part of president Obama’s pledge to reduce regulatory burden, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced HHS will postpone the date at which certain health care entities have to comply with International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10) diagnosis and procedure codes.

February 16, 2012 — Few hospitals have as much experience with the Berlin Heart pediatric ventricular assist device (VAD) as DMC Children's Hospital of Michigan. This is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was eager to hear testimony from Henry L. Walters III, M.D., the hospital’s chief of cardiovascular surgery.

February 16, 2012 — Velomedix Inc., a clinical stage medical device company, announced it has received investigational device exemption (IDE) approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to evaluate the use of rapid therapeutic hypothermia for the treatment of patients suffering an acute myocardial infarction (AMI or heart attack).

February 15, 2012 — Vessix Vascular Inc., developer of a novel percutaneous radiofrequency (RF) balloon catheter technology, announced that it will make its first detailed public presentation of preclinical data relating to its new V2 Renal Denervation System on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012 at the TRenD Workshop 2012, in Frankfurt, Germany.