Growth seeded the need for a dedicated PCI program at Saratoga Hospital that went live in January along with a complete technology overhaul: cath lab, hemodynamic monitoring, echocardiography and a fully integrated cardiovascular information system. The PCI program, close to 100 interventions later, is now considered a jewel of the county and a model for other facilities considering a technology refresh.

Once just a feature of science fiction, robotics is now an integral part of the current healthcare landscape. With the advent of robotic-assisted percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), interventional cardiology may be poised to experience a tectonic shift.

After two years of follow up, patients with peripheral artery disease who received a drug-coated balloon had significantly higher primary patency and a significantly lower rate of clinically driven target lesion revascularization compared with patients who received conventional percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA).

Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A. looks to its managers to preserve that margin by slashing supply costs without compromising clinical quality.

If you work in a cath lab and you would like to make more money, take some pointers from SpringBoard Healthcare’s 2015 survey. The survey results shed light on wage information from directors and managers to nurses and techs.

Thoratec Corporation, a world leader in mechanical circulatory support therapies to save, support and restore failing hearts, announced that the FDA has granted conditional approval for a U.S. IDE clinical trial to investigate use of the HeartMate PHP acute catheter-based heart pump in patients undergoing a high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) continued to hold its own against surgery in low-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, based on two-year results presented May 19 at EuroPCR in Paris.

This is the month for subspecialty cardiology conferences in the U.S., with two major meetings setting anchors on each coast.