The American College of Physicians is offering physicians evidence-based interventions and videos designed to improve the health outcomes of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients.

#cardiology knows where it’s @. According to a research letter published in the April 16 issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Twitter has taken wing with professional cardiology organizations and scientific journals, providing measurable success in outreach and messaging.

A New Jersey cardiologist has pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud in a scheme that allegedly bilked insurers $19 million, exposed patients to unneeded tests and treatments and involved unlicensed or untrained personnel.

eClinicalWorks®, a leader in ambulatory healthcare IT solutions, today announced that Arkansas Heart Hospital, a nationally recognized and award-winning hospital dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease, has selected eClinicalWorks comprehensive electronic health records (EHR) solution for all of its clinic locations. Tight integration with the organization’s laboratory and cardio diagnostics systems will extend the benefits of this technology. 

Decision trees sometimes overshadow clinical decision making, but physicians and patients can counter that trend with an emphasis on personalized medicine. That is the thesis of the book “When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests,” which was reviewed in the New York Times. The book is written by two emergency room physicians who offer examples of cookbook medicine, insights and cautionary tales.

Hospital executives appear to be on the hunt for physician practices to acquire in 2013, according to a survey by the staffing service Jackson Healthcare, but cardiology is not the prize catch.

Thirty-day mortality rates for acute MI, heart failure and pneumonia at critical access hospitals rose between 2002 and 2010 while rates at non-critical access hospitals dropped, according to an analysis published April 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Any interventions designed to improve outcomes at critical access hospitals should be tested in a cluster randomized controlled trial, the author of an accompanying editorial advised.

In research, sometimes the process deserves as much accolades as the results. Take two recent studies where IT innovators not only built the foundation for the analyses but they also devised much needed solutions for tackling administrative data.