"We're constantly trying to keep our fingers on the pulse of what's happening in the real world," explained Joan Michaels, RN, director of the STS/ACC TVT Registry.  "This is not a trial; this is real-world experience."

Many make federal reimbursement plans into an issue about high-paid specialists complaining about pay cuts, but these fees also compensate nurses, technicians, support staff and administrators. Payment keeps the doors of brick-and-mortar medical practices open, MGMA warns.

“We believe that any iatrogenic complication should be reported,” the study's authors wrote. “No patient expects to be discharged from hospital with a new diaphragmatic deficit without being informed."

Cardiology faces one of its most challenging decades ahead, with mounting pressures from workforce shortages, an aging population and declining reimbursements. To remain sustainable, practices are forced to rethink how care is delivered from the ground up.

“It is your responsibility to be the patient’s advocate,” one expert explained. “We, as the nurses and technologists, have to speak up when we see something that isn’t right.”

Transcatheter patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) closure has been a mainstay in congenital interventional cardiology for decades, but changes in the standard of care have resulted in catheter-based treatments overtaking surgical procedures. 

More and more care teams are treating BAV stenosis with TAVR instead of surgical aortic valve replacement. Self-expanding and balloon-expandable valves appear to have their own benefits—as well as their own risks. 

Hemodynamic valve deterioration after one year was more common in patients with a small aortic annulus. In fact, receiving a larger valve was linked to a “protective” quality that appeared to help keep the risk of such complications to a minimum.