Cardiology

This CME activity was created to assist physicians who treat atrial fibrillation to appropriately use evidence-based algorithms and treatment recommendations in the formulation of optimal management strategies for their patients.

We spoke with Dr. Kent Willyard about his experience using Epocrates since it was introduced to healthcare professionals.

Recently, there has been some interesting data about stroke that is worth mentioning.

Sen. Joe Lieberman is officially working to block health care reform in the Congress; he especially desires de-postponing any kind of "health care reform" until the economy has recovered.

The American Lung Association created this collection of in-depth educational resources for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension and their families and caregivers.

The University of Michigan Health System issued guidelines for the clinical care of adults with coronary artery disease in March 2009.

I watched a student reading her text from a hand-held device not too long ago in class, and wondered how she could read print that it fit such a small screen. Soon I'll find out for myself I've just been informed by a family member that a Nook is coming my way after the holidays.

Patients with heart disease should also be tested for COPD, according to new research, as more than one quarter of patients with heart disease may also have COPD and not yet know it.

In addition to promulgating standards of care regarding glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which were discussed in part 1 of this series, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has also outlined blood pressure goals. This report will review these blood pressure goals and discuss important components of the physical examination for diabetic patients, including eye and renal evaluations.

The development of clinical medical-practice guidelines is a difficult and arduous process. Experts in various disciplines volunteer many hours of their time for medical research reviews and analyses and meetings with fellow guidelines-panel members, and painstakingly writing and reviewing the final report. However, there are many concerns about the quality of medical research serving as a basis for those guidelines.

I overhead two women chatting about symptoms the other day while they were surfing WebMD on their respective iPhones for diagnoses - their discussion was as public and non-chalant as if they were shopping. I mused over this for a minute, unsure if I should be disturbed or not, and then found myself wondering which URLs really are the "go-to" sites for health information. An answer was only a click away via Google search at eBizMBA.com.

Way back in January, Phil Baumann, RN, provided an empathic answer to the question/concern that was on everyone's mind then: "Yeah Twitter seems great and all, but can you use it for anything useful in healthcare?" We followed up with him to see how 2009 went.

As the mean BMI in the U.S. edges higher, I thought that a discussion of 2 recent analyses regarding lipids was pertinent to the season.

HITECH says covered entities must be able to monitor and record every time that patient data is accessed, enabling the entity to comply with the new notification requirements should unauthorized access occur. Will the new rules end up restricting the efficient exchange of data that is crucial to providing high-quality healthcare?

As EHRs are widely adopted and the quantity of information about a patient expands dramatically, does provider liability increase even if the quality of care is vastly improved?

Large organizations with mobile workers, such as hospitals, face diminished productivity when communication is inefficient and its employees are unable to locate their coworkers in a timely manner.

Bravo. The government finally has its healthcare IT priorities straight. Unfortunately, it won't be able to achieve them.

Below are select statistics on the prevalence, incidence, and mortality rates associated with angina pectoris in the US.

For those interested in health information technology, there is now an excellent, new, powerful website about this topic called the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. In their most recent report, "Can Cleveland Clinic Be a Model for Digital Medicine?" they discuss how this hospital system has failed to recoup their $100 million investment to date.

Individuals with mild to moderate coronary heart disease, treated with intensive medical therapy alone, were no more likely to die from a heart problem after five years than those who also had an angioplasty procedure.

Researchers from Imperial College London have found the trigger that causes inflammation and artery damage in patients with atherosclerosis.

Insulin resistance may affect long-term cardiovascular outcomes in type 1 diabetes and results indicate that insulin resistance is directly related to decreased heart and vessel function and appears to impair capacity to exercise.

Glucose intolerance during pregnancy predicts an increased likelihood of postpartum metabolic syndrome. In turn, cardiovascular risk factors at three months postpartum indicates that risk factors may be longstanding and contribute to long-term risk of cardiovascular disease.

Some pundits have written that health insurance mandates are well beyond the constitutional authority of the federal government to tax, spend, and regulate interstate commerce. Others have picked up on these arguments and applied them to the EHR-implementation incentives under the HITECH Act as well. The bottom line is that these arguments fail, for four reasons.

There has been much discussion about the HITECH Act and the effects it will have on healthcare in this country. The health IT industry and the federal government claim that EHR use will lead to a decrease in costs and an overall improvement in patient care. Skeptics like me disagree with these claims and feel that the push to adopt complex EHRs will be a bad deal for physicians.

Lately, I've been thinking about how fast everything moves these days. This is true in technology, medicine, business, and other important areas of our lives. Keeping up with changes in healthcare is a real challenge; just reading monthly print medical journals won't cut it anymore in the digital age. Now, practically every day I find myself looking something up on Wikipedia.

According to results from the National Institutes of Health Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation in Type 2 Diabetes (BARI 2D) study, many patients with diabetes and heart disease may achieve better results with drug therapy instead of angioplasty.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, the approaching fire storm over the patient-centered medical home model reminds me of the destructive powers seen before in HMOs.

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers have identified cells in the atria of the heart and pulmonary veins of humans and mice that may be a possible cause of atrial fibrillation.