September 1, 2011 — Welch Allyn announced the release of its CardioPerfectWorkstation (CPWS) software version 1.6.4, the next generation of the company’s electronic health record (EHR)-ready software. It allows digital storage and more efficient review of diagnostic test data from a variety of different electronic devices.

September 1, 2011 – St. Jude Medical Inc. announced the first insertion of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) as part of a United States clinical study. The trial will examine the safety and effectiveness of an ST segment monitoring feature in the device.

September 1, 2011 – The HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHR Association), a collaboration of 42 EHR supplier companies, in responding to the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) proposed rules for the Medicare physician fee schedule (MPFS) and the hospital outpatient prospective payment system for 2012, asked CMS administrator Donald M. Berwick, M.D., to reconsider its proposal to require the submission of patient-level data as it pilots electronic submissions of clinical quality measures (CQMs) based on the burden it would impose on provider organizations and other considerations. 

August 31, 2011 — Medtronic Inc. announced the start of its United States post-approval study of the Endurant AAA stent graft system, a medical device used to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA).

August 31, 2011 — Results of a recent randomized controlled study show the drug-eluting stent Xience V performs well in patients having primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). It also has a better safety profile than that of bare metal stents.

August 31, 2011 — A recent study revealed more than 1,000 cardiac arrest deaths over 15 years are connected to the failure of automated external defibrillators (AEDs); battery failure accounted for almost one-quarter of the failures. The study was published online last week in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Analysis of Automated External Defibrillator Device Failures Reported to the Food and Drug Administration").


August 30, 2011 – Results from a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2011 show that transcatheter aortic-valve implantation (TAVI) in low-risk patients met with 100 percent procedural success (versus 95.3 percent in the high Euroscore group (p=0.1). While researchers expected a lower mortality among patients with low Euroscore, the observed difference was much greater than anticipated.  In fact, the mortality rates with the Edwards Sapien valve have approached the results with conventional surgery.

August 30, 2011 – Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is the best reperfusion therapy for patients presenting with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction. Researchers used the Western Denmark Heart Registry to describe the implementation of primary PCI in Denmark. Their study (including almost 10,000 patients) showed that a strategy with early diagnosis, based on electrocardiogram (ECG) recording in the ambulance and directing the patients straight to the catheterization laboratory in the primary PCI center, was associated with a lower mortality. The data was presented this week at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Paris.

August 30, 2011 – Compared with patients who had persistently high platelet reactivity, those who achieved low platelet reactivity, according to the VerifyNow P2Y12 Test, had a reduced incidence of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stent thrombosis, as indicated by a clinical trial presented today at the ESC Congress 2011.

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