A warning from University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Neel Butala, MD about haunted houses’ cardiovascular event risks.

Cardiology

GE and Mediport’s One-Stop Cardiology Clinic

With a direct target on streamlining the cardiovascular care pathway, GE HealthCare and Belgian healthcare organization Mediport announced the launch of the first One-Stop Clinic for Cardiology – a new kind of cardiology clinic that provides patients with same-day diagnoses and care.

• The One-Stop Cardiology Clinic is now operating at Mediport’s new multidisciplinary healthcare center in Antwerp, which integrates a range of specialties that place a shared focus on streamlining care (cardiology, radiology, urology, more).

Although every cardiovascular patient is unique, Mediport and GE HealthCare mapped out a standardized diagnostic and treatment pathway covering everything from CV wellness checks to stable chest pain:

• First, patients undergo a history and bloodwork assessment
• Then, they receive ECG and ultrasound exams
• Next, patients meet with cardiologists who either discharges them or recommends further testing (often CT, stress test, or holster assignment)
• And finally, patients receive their diagnosis and care plan prior to leaving

Although this is its first cardiology One-Stop Clinic, GE has been supporting One-Stop Clinic breast cancer clinics for nearly 20 years, starting at France’s Gustave Roussy cancer center in 2004, and since expanding to several breast cancer centers in South America and the United States. 

Those One-Stop breast cancer clinics seem to have delivered. Of the over 21k women who have attended the Gustave Roussy clinic…

• 80% received same day results
• The vast majority received accurate diagnoses (98.4% sensitivity, 99.8% specificity)
• Most achieved significant cost reductions (-50% w/ benign cases, -33% w/ malignant cases).

The Takeaway

Although a quick online search reveals that there’s a growing number of same-day or one-stop cardiovascular care options, this model is still rare. But if GE and Mediport’s One-Stop Cardiology Clinic delivers the type of benefits that they’re targeting, it could give provider orgs more motivation to streamline their own cardiovascular operations.

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Better Cardiovascular Care, With a Better Bottom Line

Twenty million chest CTs are acquired in the U.S. each year, but CAC is typically unreported. See how you can leverage Bunkerhill Health’s Incidental CAC algorithm to screen for incidental coronary calcium on routine chest CTs in real-time, improving care and your bottom line.

The Wire

• Novel TAVR System Looks Viable: A JACC research letter highlighted the safety and feasibility of Koka Lifesciences’ Pioneer TAVR system for managing pure aortic regurgitation. Data from a first-in-human study showed that Pioneer TAVR was successful in all ten patients, with a 10 mm Hg mean gradient, and only one patient with a mild paravalvular leak. At 30 days post-TAVR, there had been no deaths and only one patient needed a permanent pacemaker.

• Scared to Death: An article from the University of Colorado School of Medicine revealed a cardiovascular event risk factor that many of us probably weren’t thinking about: haunted houses. The article detailed how haunted houses can activate the body’s fight or flight response, potentially prompting increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and causing heart attacks or other events. Although definitely spooky to think about, the CU article assured that haunted house-caused cardiovascular events are extremely rare. 

• Splanchnic Ablation for HFpEF: Axon Therapies’ splanchnic ablation for volume management (SAVM) procedure could be safe and effective for treating HFpEF patients. The REBALANCE-HF early feasibility study (n = 116 w/ HFpEF) found that SAVM responders had six-month improvements in quality of life (13 points, P=0.02), the 6-minute walk test (36 meters, P=0.08), and cardiac function (39%. P=0.10). Patients without advanced structural heart disease who were able to augment cardiac output during exertion benefitted the most from SAVM.

• FDA Sets Up Digital Health Group: The FDA established a new Digital Health Advisory Committee to help guide the agency’s policies on technologies like AI and machine learning, augmented and virtual reality, and wearable devices. The move illustrates digital health’s growing importance in the eyes of the FDA, and the agency is now accepting nominations of experts to serve in the nine-member committee.

• eLym HF Drainage System Passes Go: Data presented at HFSA 2023 showed that WhiteSwell’s novel eLym fluid removal system is safe and effective for acute decompensated HF. In the DELTA-HF study, nine patients who were treated with eLym and loop diuretic lost far more excess vascular fluid than six patients on loop diuretic alone (13.2 vs. 7.3 lb). The eLym patients maintained kidney function, and had no serious adverse events.

• Medtronic Evolut FX CE Mark: Medtronic’s Evolut FX TAVI/TAVR system landed European CE Mark approval for treatment of severe aortic stenosis, coming roughly two years after the device’s FDA approval and one year after its commercial launch. The fourth-generation Evolut system incorporates the same supra-annular, self-expanding valve design as previous systems, while launching with a range of improvements focused on ease-of-use, visualization, and predictability.

• Clopidogrel Beats Aspirin Post-PCI: A JACC study of antiplatelet monotherapies after PCI found that clopidogrel was better for preventing secondary CV events than aspirin. In the HOST-EXAM study of 5,403 patients, the rate of the composite endpoint (including all-cause death, nonfatal MI, stroke, and major bleeding) was 27% lower for those on clopidogrel versus aspirin (95% CI: 0.59-0.90). A corresponding editorial pointed out that the patients were Asian and trials of Westerners are “urgently needed.”

• InfoBionic’s 510(k): InfoBionic announced the FDA 510(k) clearance of its MoMe ARC remote arrhythmia monitoring solution, combining its third generation ECG monitoring tech and a new Bluetooth diagnostic 6-lead sensor. The MoMe ARC also includes a 4-in-1 Gateway device (2-day, Extended Holter tests, Event, and MCT modes) that connects to the sensor via Bluetooth, and leverages a cloud-based platform to provide clinicians with on-demand data and analytics.

• CAC+CCTA=Better CAD Diagnosis: Adding coronary artery calcium scores to CCTA images improves CAD diagnosis. That’s based on a meta-analysis of 29 studies comparing CCTA alone to CCTA+CAC among 2.3k patients with suspected CAD and stable chest pain. The combined technique had higher AUC (87% vs. 80%), and this advantage persisted regardless of age, gender, or type of chest pain. 

• CVD Risk in Early T2DM: Patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes may need early treatment for CVD. In a study of newly diagnosed T2D patients in Denmark with no known heart disease, the 10-year CVD risk for patients aged 40-49 with T2D was almost twice as high as the general population (6.1% vs. 3.3%). 

• Excess Healthcare Cost Analysis: The Commonwealth Fund looked into why US healthcare costs are nearly twice as high per person as other peer nations, and produced a nice breakdown of the leading contributors. Administrative costs were an easy target, with the report specifically calling out processes related to eligibility, coding, and submission. The top factors ranked by their share of excess costs include: health plan administrative costs (15%), provider administrative costs (15%), prescription drugs (10%), and physician wages (10%).

ECG Data You Can Trust

Noise and artifacts can make automated ECG analysis less reliable than what’s required for the exacting standards of cardiac safety trials. Monebo’s Kinetic Intervals ECG Algorithm provides precise interval measurements between any two points on the ECG waveform, allowing clinicians to utilize data they can trust.

HeartFlow’s All-In-One Results

HeartFlow made its mark at SCCT 2023, announcing its new HeartFlow ONE all-in-one portfolio and releasing a trio of studies that highlight its ability to assess plaque, improve care decision making, and improve CCTA reading efficiency.

The Resource Wire

• The University College London National Amyloidosis Centre is the world’s largest cardiac amyloidosis care provider, making their echo assessments both crucial and high-labor. See how UCL researchers used Us2.ai’s AI echo software to accurately analyze echos from 1,200 patients with ATTR Amyloidosis in 24 hours, without requiring human interaction.

• Are you sure about your cardiovascular imaging data security? Tune-in to this Change Healthcare webinar discussing how hospital systems and healthcare providers can strategically improve their data security.

• Advanced cardiac imaging often calls for a time-consuming post-processing step, requiring costly software, hardware, and training. See how PIA provides this post-processing at lower cost, improved consistency, and greater efficiency. 

• Cleery came out on top at HLTH 2023’s Digital Health Awards, where it was named winner of the Best Use of AI in Health Tech category. That’s quite an accomplishment given that there were over 450 competing AI companies, and a testament to how it’s using AI to “revolutionize the identification and prevention of heart disease.”