The dialysis company Fresenius is acquiring National Cardiovascular Partners for an undisclosed amount.

Two cardiologists in Kentucky agreed to pay $380,000 in the culmination of a whistleblower case that led to a $16.5 million settlement and a prison term for a third cardiologist.

With nearly five years left on the Healthy People 2020 goals for hypertension, researchers measured progress and found much wanting. Although key areas have improved, according to the study published online Oct. 20 in Circulation, prevalent hypertension remained well above the goal of 26.9 percent and hypertension control efforts plateaued well below the goal of 61.2 percent.

The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association joins the World Stroke Organization in acknowledging the Global Stroke Bill of Rights, launched today at the 9th World Stroke Congress in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Department of Homeland Security is working with manufacturers of implantable cardioverter defibrillators, pacemakers and other devices to plug holes in coding that might make them vulnerable to hackers, according to Reuters.

An accountable care organization (ACO) pilot failed to see reductions in discretionary spending for cardiovascular nonessentials, researchers found. The study published online Oct. 20 in Circulation noted that care did not diminish for those patients for whom procedures were essential, however. 

An ethicist urges the medical community and hospitals in the U.S. to talk about the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation for Ebola patients and put policies in place before “confronting this problem in the heat of cardiac arrest,” the New York Times reported.

Fighting adolescent obesity with a healthy message has sweet effects. Researchers studied how adolescents made purchasing choices after being exposed to four different messages about sugar-sweetened drinks. Some decided against drink purchases altogether, according to the study published online Oct. 16 in the American Journal of Public Health.