MedCath and its physician partners have entered into a definitive agreement to sell substantially all the assets of Heart Hospital of Austin to St. David's Healthcare Partnership, an Austin, Texas-based joint venture of HCA, Nashville.

In an American Heart Association survey of 1,105 adults pre-identified with a heart condition, stroke or high blood pressure, 56 percent reported trouble paying their medical expenses, 16 percent had no health insurance coverage at all and 29 percent reported that medical costs to treat cardiovascular disease consumed most of their savings.

Siemens Healthcare has renewed its strategic alliance with EHR/practice management company NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, to deliver ambulatory IT software.

In 2007, roughly 17.5 million U.S. adults were diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus, 57 million were prediabetic and a staggering 6.3 million were unaware they had diabetes and went untreated. While costs associated with the disease reached $218 billion in 2007, treatment and prevention remain scarce, according to a study published online Jan. 16 in Health Affairs.

Global coronary heart disease (CHD) risk information seems to improve the accuracy of risk perception and may increase intent to initiate CHD prevention among individuals at moderate to high risk, according to a systematic review published in the Feb. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Cardiovascular Consultants of Georgia has joined Piedmont Heart Institute, effective Jan. 29.

Randomized controlled trials (RCT), the gold standard for evidence-based management policies, have flaws that can lead to suboptimal practice recommendations, according to research published Feb. 2 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) is an interventional cardiology boutique conference that is focusing this years content on how clinical, economic and regulatory considerations will Impact Clinical Practice, says course chairman Ron Waksman, MD. The conference takes place Feb. 21-23 in Washington, D.C.