Quality

The focus of quality improvement in healthcare is to bolster performance and processes related to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Leaders in this space also ensure the proper selection of imaging exams and procedures, and monitor the safety of services, among other duties. Reimbursement programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) utilize financial incentives to improve quality. This also includes setting and maintaining care quality initiatives, such as the requirements set by the Joint Commission.

Staff at the new Fetal Cardiac Clinic at the Heart Institute at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. From left, Director of the Heart Institute David Romberger, RN, MSN, CCRN; attending physician Shuo Wang, MD; Executive Director of the Heart Institute Jennifer Klunder, MHA; Director of the Fetal Cardiac Clinic Jodie Votava-Smith, MD; Chief of the Division of Cardiology and Co-director of the Heart Institute Paul F. Kantor, MBBCh, MSc, FRCPC; and congenital cardiac surgeon Luke Wiggins, MD.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles unveils new fetal cardiac clinic

Clinic for expectant mothers designed to better diagnose and treat congenital heart defects and heart diseases before birth. 

Video of Patricia Keegan, NP, Emory, explains value of the ACC TVT NCDR registry for TAVR and why it is important from both a quality monitoring standpoint and for attracting patients to your program.

Data registries have been a huge success for U.S. structural heart programs

ACC/STS National Cardiovascular Data Registry metrics reporting for TAVR is important for marketing and care quality, explains Patricia Keegan, NP, with the Emory Heart and Vascular Center.

Video of Mahadevappa Mahesh, PhD, incoming-AAPM president, professor of radiology and a medical physicist, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains key trends in imaging physics presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2023 meeting.

6 key trends in medical imaging physics

Mahadevappa Mahesh, PhD, incoming American Association of Physicists in Medicine president, discusses key developments in the specialty. 

Souptik Barua, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Precision Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, explains how artificial intelligence (AI) and wearable accelerometers can be used in cardiac rehabilitation to phenotype step-count trajectories in older adults.

Leveraging AI and wearables for enhanced cardiac rehabilitation monitoring

NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers used artificial intelligence and wearable activity trackers to improve the monitoring and classification of older adult cardiac rehabilitation patients.

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Multidisciplinary quality improvement initiative significantly improves on-time starts for cardiac MRI

Such delays can result in longer patient fasts, extended wait times, and poor synchronization of anesthesia induction, researchers detailed in JACR

COVID-19 precautions implemented in 2020 reduced D2B times in STEMI patients, and its impact continues to reduce times following the pandemic.

Hospitals still struggling to reach pre-COVID heart attack care thresholds due to pandemic disruption

NCDR report finds hospitals are seeing improvements but are still struggling to reach pre-COVID treatment thresholds years after pandemic precautions upended longstanding processes.

the words "FDA recall" on a board

FDA announces yet another recall, the fifth of 2023, for troubled heart devices

The latest Class I recall is due to mechanical issues that can cause the devices to stop charging their batteries. 

Imaging companies join forces to deliver AI-guided echocardiography exams

The collaboration, announced at ASE 2023, was launched in the name of patient access. 

Around the web

GE HealthCare said the price of iodine contrast increased by more than 200% between 2017 to 2023. Will new Chinese tariffs drive costs even higher?

Several key trends were evident at the Radiological Society of North America 2024 meeting, including new CT and MR technology and evolving adoption of artificial intelligence.