HCI's Monthly Review of the Healthcare Industry
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Robert J. Stilley
President, CEO
HeartCare Imaging, Inc.
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Dear Colleague -
Please take a look at the first article listed below as it reviews the great work of HCI employee, and FL State Representative MaryLynn Magar. Working with the ACC, MaryLynn is making it easier for physicians to deal with pre-authorization issues in Florida.
It's not just MaryLynn who finds value in service, you'll find that HCI employees give 100% to our job of taking care of our customers while also giving back to our community. We have employees volunteering with organizations such as Boy Scouts, Junior League, youth athletic leagues, and hospital boards...just to name a few. Service is encouraged at HCI because we believe that service is needed for us to be great community partners in the areas we work. While the goal is to help others, we also all know that what we experience also provides us with memories and information that help grow us as individuals. As a company, HCI also participates with significant financial contributions to various charities.
I'm proud to be associated with so many civic minded individuals who 'get' that it's important to give back and be involved to make our communities a better place to live.
Please enjoy this month's newsletter!
Best Regards,
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FDA, NRC Clear Path for U.S. Supply of Molybdenum-99
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February 8, 2018 -- A U.S.-based supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is finally at hand: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes' RadioGenix isotope separation system, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will license the system's production of technetium-99m (Tc-99m) for medical use.
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Journal of The American College of Cardiology
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Here are just a few highlights from the many accomplishments of ACC’s chapters in 2017:
Member Value and Engagement
The ACC is a member organization, and as such, its focus on member value and engagement is central to meeting its mission. The primary goal in this category is for cardiovascular specialists across the entire care team, and across the diverse spectrum of ethnicity, race, sex, and so on, to choose the ACC as their professional home. ACC chapters are working to provide tremendous value to their members every day, and one such way is by serving as effective advocates for patients and the entire cardiovascular care team. In California, Chapter members alone met with more than 30 Assembly members and defeated SB 790 on health provider gifts and benefits for 2017. In Florida, Representative Mary Lynn Magar was so affected by a legislative meeting with ACC Florida Chapter members regarding 2 prior authorization bills (HB 877 and HB 579) that she rethought her strategy. Following the meeting, both bills were put on the House Health Innovation Subcommittee agenda; hearings were held 2 days later; and ultimately both were unanimously passed in committee.
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SNMMI and ASNC Issue Joint Guidelines for Quanitification of Myocardial Blood Flow Using PET
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Radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is among the most commonly performed diagnostic tests in cardiology. Positron emission tomography (PET) can quantify global and regional myocardial blood flow, assess regional perfusion abnormalities with relative MPI, and assess function abnormalities and chamber dimensions. Quantification of myocardial blood flow requires accurate measurement of the total tracer activity transported by the arterial blood and delivered to the myocardium over time.
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Migraines Tied to Higher Heart Trouble Risk
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Migraine sufferers might have to worry about more than just dealing with debilitating headaches.
Migraine patients could also face an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and irregular heart rates, a new study suggests.
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Lipoproteins, Lipids Have Similar Ties to MI, Ischemic Stroke
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Lipoproteins and lipids are similarly associated with risk of myocardial infarction (MI) and ischemic stroke (IS) but not intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), according to a study published in the Feb. 13 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
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U.S. FDA Looks to Pave Way for Earlier-stage Alzheimer's Drugs
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U.S. regulators have proposed lowering the bar for clinical trial success for experimental Alzheimer’s drugs to better align with the current emphasis on the need to treat people when they are in the earliest stages of the brain-wasting disease.
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Who is Most at Risk After Having a Heart Attack?
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A study investigates which people are most at risk of premature death due to cardiovascular disease after having a heart attack. One biomarker may help healthcare providers to personalize their predictions.
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Low Blood Pressure Linked to Worse Outcomes In HFpEF Patients
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or older patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels below 120 mm Hg—and even 130—are associated with worse short- and long-term cardiovascular outcomes, according to a study published online Feb. 14 in JAMA Cardiology.
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Pregnancy-Related HF Raises Risk for Adverse Outcomes
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Women who were hospitalized for HF during or after pregnancy had an increased risk for maternal morbidities and mortality, according to a study published in Circulation: Heart Failure.
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Risk for High BP Elevated in Many Racial, Ethnic Groups
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Patients who were African-American, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders had an increased risk for hypertension compared with those who were white or Hispanic regardless of weight category, neighborhood status or education level, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.
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Cardiac Rehab After VAD Implantation Rare--But Effective
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Only 30 percent of Medicare patients who received ventricular assist devices (VADs) in 2014 attended cardiac rehabilitation, but those patients enjoyed significant decreases in hospitalizations and mortality over the following year, according to a study in JACC: Heart Failure.
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Noise Pollution May Increase CV risk
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Noise caused by transportation disrupts the body on the cellular level, contributing to the development of CV risks such as CAD, arterial hypertension, stroke and HF, according to a review published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology.
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Ovarian Cancer Screening Still Ineffective, Not Recommended: Panel
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Screening for ovarian cancer is not recommended for women with no signs or symptoms of the disease, newly released guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force say.
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Cancer 'Super Assassin': Huntington's Disease Molecule can Target and Kill All Tumor Cells, Scientists Find
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Scientists have destroyed numerous types of human cancer cells with a toxic molecule characteristic of fatal genetic illness Huntington’s disease.
The researchers hailed the molecule—which has killed both human and mouse ovarian, breast, prostate, liver, brain, lung, skin and colon cancer cell lines in mice—as a “super assassin.”
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Study Results May Lead to 'Completely Different Way' of Treating Lymphoma Subtype
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More than half of patients with refractory, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma remained alive at least 1 year after receiving a single infusion of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite Pharma/Gilead Sciences).
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Therapy Reverses Alzheimer's Brain Plaque Buildup -- in Mice
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Brain plaques believed to contribute to Alzheimer's disease melt away in mice when robbed of a key enzyme, researchers report.
And the rodents' intellectual function actually improved as their amyloid plaques dissolved from lack of beta-secretase (BACE1), an enzyme critical in the formation of the plaques, said senior researcher Riqiang Yan. He is vice chair of neuroscience with the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.
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Novartis Gaines U.S. Approval for Delayed MS Drug
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Novartis’s Sandoz division has won U.S. approval for a larger dosage of its Glatopa drug for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, ending a costly delay that allowed rival generics makers to beat it to market.
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New Method Maps the Dopamine System in Parkinson's Patients
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With the aid of a PET camera, researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed a new method for investigating the dopamine system in the brains of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. The method measures levels of a protein called dopamine transporter and could lead to improved diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and the development of new treatments. The study is published in the scientific journal Movement Disorders.
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How Exercise May Help Protect Your Brain From Cognitive Decline and Dementia
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Older adults with poor fitness levels have more deterioration of white matter in their brains, according to a new study, compared with their fitter peers. White matter deterioration was also linked with a decline in decision-making brain function among adults with early signs of memory loss, suggesting that regular exercise may slow cognitive decline and perhaps even dementia, say the study authors.
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First Glimpse of How Genes May Cause Mental Health Problems
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Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism seem to have some similar effects on the brain. Analyzing gene activity is taking us a step closer to understanding what causes such mental health conditions.
Unlike cancer or Alzheimer’s, say, for which underlying biological causes have been identified, psychiatric disorders and some developmental disorders are defined by behavioral symptoms. We know that people born with certain gene variants can be more likely to develop schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism-like behavior, but we don’t know what these genes might be doing, and how they might put people at risk.
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Breastfeeding Found to Be Protective Against Hypertension
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Postmenopausal women who breastfed more children, or breastfed for a longer duration, have a lower risk of hypertension, according to a study published online Jan. 30 in the American Journal of Hypertension.
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Exercise May Help Lung Cancer Surgery Go More Smoothly
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Lung cancer patients can halve their risk of postop complications by taking up an exercise program before their surgery, a new report suggests.
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Double-barrel Cancer Treatment Wipes Out Tumors and Goes Hunting for More
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Harnessing the body's natural immune defenses to take the fight to cancer, known as immunotherapy, is an especially promising area of cancer research with the potential to tackle all forms of the disease. Scientists from Stanford University are now reporting an exciting new advance in the field, discovering that a single injection of immune-stimulating agents can quickly destroy tumors in mice, and promisingly, clinical trials investigating its effects in humans are already underway.
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CMS Finalizes Revamp of Cardiac Device Coverage
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The CMS has finalized an overhaul of its coverage policy for implantable cardiac devices, expediting patient access and cutting regulatory burden for providers using the products.The CMS is eliminating waiting periods for device implantation and dropping a policy that requires patients to be tracked in a registry. It is also requiring shared decisionmaking, which the agency said would empower patients.
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Report: Healthcare Way Behind Other Major Sectors in Proper Cybersecurity Protocols
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The healthcare industry is one of the lowest performing industries in terms of endpoint security, and the sector as a whole ranks near the bottom in cybersecurity strength compared to other major industries, according to a new report from New York City-based security risk company SecurityScorecard.
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Politics that Affect Medicine
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Verma Renews Commitment to Value-Based Models
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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma renewed her commitment Monday to reshaping the U.S. healthcare delivery system into one that values quality over quantity.
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AHA asks CMS to Delay Application Deadline For New Bundled-Payment Model
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The American Hospital Association urged the CMS this week to provide more details on its newest voluntary bundled-payment model and to delay the deadline to apply so hospital leaders have more time to consider participating. In a letter to the agency, the AHA recommended the CMS make available more information by March 1 and then delay the application deadline from March 12 to April 16.
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Repealing Individual Mandate Penalty Will Cause Spike in Uninsured: CMS
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The Trump administration is projecting that nearly 8 million people will voluntarily lose insurance in the next eight years as a result of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act's financial penalty for not having health insurance. In all, 37.7 million people will be uninsured by 2026, up from the estimated 30 million in 2018, according to an analysis CMS actuaries released Wednesday.
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Trump Aims to Reduce Drug Costs Under Medicare
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President Donald Trump will propose lowering prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries by allowing them to share in rebates that drug companies pay to insurers and middlemen, an administration official said Thursday.
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Chronic Care Act breaks down barriers to telemedicine use
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Industry groups and telemedicine providers are praising the inclusion of telemedicine legislation in the recent congressional budget deal, saying it paves the way for greater use of the technology and will boost access to care while reducing costs.
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For over 25 years, HRSI has provided Authorized User (AU) classroom and laboratory training to physicians. HRSI's training is recognized by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and fulfills the didactic training required by law.
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Annual Rural Health Conference May 8-11, 2018 in New Orleans, LA. New Orleans Marriott Hotel.
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HeartCare Imaging, Inc. | Phone: 561-746-6125 | Fax: 561-741-2036 | info@heartcareimaging.com
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