December 21, 2017 — Bay Labs, a medical technology company applying artificial intelligence (AI) to cardiovascular imaging, recently announced it completed $5.5 million in financing. The Series A round was led by existing investor Khosla Ventures with participation from new investors including Data Collective (DCVC), Greenbox Venture Partners, Minneapolis Heart Institute Ventures and Georges Harik.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week finalized the cancellation of the mandatory hip fracture and cardiac bundled payment models that were to be operated by the CMS Innovation Center and implemented changes to the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) Model. These changes will offer greater flexibility and choice for hospitals in providing care to Medicare patients.

Philips recently announced agreements with 3D Systems and Stratasys, two global leaders in the 3-D printing industry, to help progress patient care and improve the clinician experience. Advanced 3-D modeling provides radiologists with additional views to help strengthen anatomical knowledge which could enhance clinical impact in reviewing complex, multi-disciplinary cases.

A team of researchers at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, U.K., has been awarded €6.5 million from the Horizon 2020 European Commission fund. The team — a partnership between Leicester’s Hospitals, the University of Leicester and Loughborough University, and led by clinical scientist consultant Prof. Anthony Gershlick from the university’s Department of Cardiovascular Sciences — will investigate the impact of using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) on the outcomes of patients who have had a severe heart attack.

ERT recently announced it has acquired iCardiac Technologies, a provider of centralized cardiac safety and respiratory solutions that accelerate clinical research. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Catheter reprocessing can reduce costs in the cath and EP lab.

As payers and other healthcare entities look to better manage costs, especially in the acute care setting, it is important to note that there are some clinical areas where the hospital’s margins are already modest and shrinking. For example, in a typical pulmonary vein isolation case, the cost of devices alone exceeds $10,000. This does not include additional capital equipment costs, software costs, pharmaceuticals, clinical staffing and ancillary equipment or any hospital overhead.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a final guidance, “FDA Categorization of Investigational Device Exemption Devices to Assist the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with Coverage Decisions”, which modifies the FDA’s policy on categorization of IDE devices used in clinical studies. Devices with an approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) are categorized into one of two categories by the FDA — Experimental (Category A) devices or Nonexperimental/Investigational (Category B) devices — based on the level of risk the device poses to the patient. This categorization is used by CMS to determine whether an IDE device, and certain services related to those devices, may be covered by CMS.

The Boston Scientific Rhythmia Mapping System produces higher-density voltage maps without increasing overall procedure time.
The Apama single-shot ablation balloon pulmonary vein isolation for atrial fibrillation
The Boston Scientific Rhythmia Mapping System produces higher-density voltage maps without increasing overall procedure time.

When I began practicing as an electrophysiologist in 1994, the dream of successfully using cardiac catheter ablation to restore a normal rhythm to patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) in a lab setting was just that: a dream.[1] Today, nearly 6 million Americans live with AFib, and that number is expected to nearly double by 2030.[2,3]  I have been fortunate in my career to witness the introduction and aid in the design of novel technologies to meet the treatment demands created by the surge of AFib

Collaborative 3D printing in Medical Practice

West Virginia residents experience disproportionately high instances of cardiovascular disease in comparison to other states, with greater than 40 percent of adults suffering from hypertension and only two out of 10 adults receiving screening for cardiovascular risks. These statistics, coupled with a shortage of healthcare professionals, provide West Virginia with a unique opportunity for innovation and improvement in the detection of latent cardiovascular disease.

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