What a weekend. The American College of Cardiology annual scientific session. A looming deadline for the sustainable growth rate formula. And a Sweet Sixteen with Cinderellas galore.

The Duke University Health System agreed to pay $1 million to settle a whistleblower case involving its cardiac services.

Annals of Internal Medicine today launched a new interactive medical education tool designed to test physicians' decision-making skills. Annals Virtual Patients uses a unique "if this, then that" format, so each learner goes down his or her own path through a complex clinical simulation. Each simulation covers the examination, diagnosis, and treatment of a virtual patient. Upon completion of each case, physicians may earn Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credits.

Corindus Vascular Robotics, a leading developer of precision vascular robotics and provider of the CorPath Vascular Robotic System, today announced a partnership with Sanford Health and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to launch a feasibility investigation for a remote robotics program.

The attorney general in Hawaii filed a lawsuit against the manufacturers of clopidogrel, claiming the companies deceptively marketed the antiplatelet drug by not disclosing its reduced efficacy in patients who are poor metabolizers. 

Incremental improvements in stenting over the past several decades gradually transformed practice and patient care. Will the same be true for less invasive cardiac surgery?

The upcoming American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference will feature more than 2,200 abstracts and 22 late-breaking trials. The ACC elaborated March 18 on its list of late-breakers that will be presented at the three-day event, to be held March 29-31 in Washington, D.C.

About 20 percent of older Americans take multiple medications that may interfere with each other, a study published Feb. 25 in PLOS ONE found. Despite the frequency of this “therapeutic competition,” providers change treatments only about 16 percent of the time.