The Texas Heart Institute dropped its lawsuit against St. Luke’s Health System after signing a partnership agreement.

With CABG in the cross hairs for upcoming Medicare penalties, hospitals may want to begin exploring factors that contribute to lower 30-day readmission rates. A study published in the Sept. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found CABG had the highest 30-day readmission rate of six surgical procedures.

Better blood pressure control may be as simple as an automated telephone call.

Symphony Health Solutions, a provider of high-value data, analytics and technology solutions for life science manufacturers, payers and providers, and the American College of Cardiology (ACC), a professional organization dedicated to improving cardiovascular health, today announced they have entered into a business relationship to develop new insights from an integrated healthcare database, which will include assets from the ACC’s rich National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) and Symphony Health’s Integrated DataverseTM.

The cardiology profession, like healthcare, is in a state of flux. With large numbers of physicians at or near retirement age, there could be an exodus of talent. Today's newly trained specialists are finding that their career path bears little resemblance to that of their elders.

Who should prepare the next generation of cardiologists to succeed in the increasingly complex milieu of medicine? Physicians, medical schools or the societies designed to meet their professional needs? Perhaps all.

The evolving fiscal needs of the U.S. healthcare system have made reducing the number of 30-day readmissions for certain conditions a priority, but despite the laser focus on the issue, discharge planning is still inadequate, researchers reported in a JAMA Internal Medicine study published online Aug. 19.

Cardiology held onto its spot as one of most sought after specialties in an analysis of physician recruitment requests while once-hot radiology dropped from the top 20 list. Income data suggest not all is rosy for cardiologists, though.