February 18, 2011 – A zero-footprint mobile application that enables remote access to imaging tools from hand-held mobile devices, as well as Macintosh- or Windows-based PCs is on display at the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2011 Annual Conference and Exhibition.

February 18, 2011 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared an ultrasound software tool to measure the thickness of the intima-media layers of the carotid artery to evaluate asymptomatic patients' risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Auto-IMT, from Toshiba, is now available on the Aplio XG, Aplio MX and Xario XG ultrasound systems.

February 18, 2011 – An independent study in the journal Circulation confirmed the early and sustained clinical benefits for a system treating aortic valve disease.


Clopidogrel (Plavix) has been the standard antiplatelet therapy for a decade, but it is now facing challenges with the fact that one-third of patients do not respond to the agent and new drugs offer alternatives.

Healthcare IT vendors offer a variety of cardiovascular information systems (CVIS), picture archiving and communications systems (PACS), imaging and diagnostic hardware they say will integrate into a seamless electronic medical record. However, end-users still complain this level of interoperability does not exist.

Warren Hospital, an acute care community hospital serving Warren and Hunterdon counties in rural New Jersey, supports 214 patient beds and 140,000 outpatient visits per year.
radial access side board for radial artery access procedures in the cath lab
radial artery access, transradial drape for procedures in the cath lab
radial artery access, transradial wrist patient prep

The femoral artery approach for cardiac catheterizations has been used as the gold-standard in the United States, but there is growing interest in the transradial approach. One of the main advantages of radial access is increased safety with fewer bleeding complications.

As healthcare marches toward completely wireless electronic medical records, Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology will periodically highlight how cardiac departments around the country are working toward this goal.

Based on my observations and the devices that caught the eye of the doctors on the Diagnostic & Interventional Cardiology Editorial Advisory Board, we created the following predictions of what will be hot trends to watch in 2011.

February 17, 2011 – Abnormal heart rate turbulence is associated with an increased risk of heart disease death in otherwise low-risk older individuals, according to a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The study appears in the Feb. 15 edition of the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology.

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