Twelve features define a successful service line, Suzette Jaskie, president and CEO of MedAxiom Consulting, said June 18 at the MedAxiom Cardiovascular Service Line Symposium in Beaver Creek, Colo. “I will tell you up front that no one place is doing all of them.”

Quality measures can be sticks or carrots. Either way, they may influence physicians’ behaviors and hospitals’ practices, so watching what is on the horizon is important. Two recent analyses could change the playing field for providers who provide CABG surgery or who wrestle with hospital-acquired complications.

How low can it go? Apparently, decreasing elevated blood pressure into the standard range in hypertensive patients can do as much good as bringing it down even lower, according to a study published online June 16 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

In the fight against heart disease and diabetes, it’s time to start working together. That’s what a collaboration between the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Diabetes Association, the American College of Physicians and the Joslin Diabetes Center intends to do by opening up the cross-specialty dialogue, its leaders told Cardiovascular Business.

Now it is Bayer’s turn. Less than a month after Boehringer Ingelheim set aside $650 million to settle lawsuits in the U.S. over its anticoagulant dabigatran (Pradaxa), rival Bayer received its first round of similar claims over rivaroxaban (Xarelto), according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

An analysis of inpatient complications placed acute MI and pulmonary embolism as top targets for potential quality measures that payers might consider to reduce variation in care and costs. The two conditions were among the top 10 conditions likely to affect mortality, length of stay, cost and reimbursement.

Even 3.5 hours of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) use a night can make a difference to average blood pressure throughout the day in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular risk factors, a study published online June 12 in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

What happens when you have a wide variation in pricing and the potential for a flood of demand? Scrutiny, hopefully.