Care Delivery

This channel includes news on cardiovascular care delivery, including how patients are diagnosed and treated, cardiac care guidelines, policies or legislation impacting patient care, device recalls that may impact patient care, and cardiology practice management.

Investor-bought PCPs carry on like nothing much has changed—with caveats
Private-equity acquisitions of primary-care provider practices neither alter hospitalization rates nor affect acute-care outcomes, according to new research out of Brown University.
How to—and how not to—consult with ‘Dr. ChatGPT’ and its peers
Do: Use large-language AI to help analyze your specific symptoms. Don’t: Ask a chatbot if you should go to the emergency room.
Post-pandemic allowances for telehealth claims have not triggered runaway healthcare spending
If Congress doesn’t act soon, CMS’s flexible funding of telemedicine visits—a temporary holdover from the COVID era—will dry up next year. A new study may help persuade fiscally cautious representatives not to let that happen.
AI course-of-care notes help doctors, pose little risk of harm to patients
Agentic large-language models can draft hospital discharge summaries that are safe, useful and demonstrably effective at helping to curb physician burnout, according to research conducted at Stanford University.
AATS helps heart surgeons diagnose and manage heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia after heart surgery is a major concern, but prior guidelines were developed without much feedback from actual cardiac surgeons.

Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

quotes on artificial intelligence in healthcare

Overheard this week: Notable quotes on healthcare AI

“Until there is a global consensus on how this is regulated, Asian countries—where data privacy is less of a focus—could see a clear contrast with the West in how AI is used.”

AHA head: ‘Time to hold commercial health insurers accountable’

The problem of commercial health insurers standing between patients and providers is bad and only getting worse.

Relaxed fasting instructions prior to TAVR, other heart procedures do not affect outcomes

Fasting before major operations has been common in healthcare for nearly 80 years, but that has started to change since the turn of the century.

The ThermoCool SmartTouch SF catheter from Biosense Webster

FDA approves several Biosense Webster devices for fluoroscopy-free ablation procedures

Using these devices as part of a zero-fluoroscopy workflow, which replaces X-rays with an alternative modality such as ultrasound, limits radiation exposure and the use of burdensome protective equipment.

AHA urges hospital stakeholders to wake up and smell the financial trouble that’s been brewing

The American Hospital Association is sounding the alarm over evidently widespread acceptance of 0% operating margins—or even negative margins—as a sort of “new normal” for U.S. hospitals and health systems.

U.S. News: Out with overall hospital rankings, in with alphabetically ordered ‘honor rolls’

U.S. News & World Report has posted its annual list of America’s best hospitals. But be warned. If you’re checking to see whether Mayo Clinic occupies the overall top spot for the eighth straight year, you’ll go down looking.

artificial intelligence healthcare industry digest

Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

Care Delivery

Investor-bought PCPs carry on like nothing much has changed—with caveats

How to—and how not to—consult with ‘Dr. ChatGPT’ and its peers

Post-pandemic allowances for telehealth claims have not triggered runaway healthcare spending

AI course-of-care notes help doctors, pose little risk of harm to patients

AATS helps heart surgeons diagnose and manage heparin-induced thrombocytopenia