As hospitals plan for a post-COVID healthcare landscape, one of the important factors to consider will be how patients can know it is “safe” to go back to the hospital. It evokes thoughts of the Jaws 2 poster as many remain conflicted about the safety of visiting restaurants, friends, and other places outside of the…
The new ACC valvular heart disease guidelines, released in 2020, recognize the expanding role of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and the intervention choices available for a patient with severe aortic stenosis. This focused update provides evidence-based recommendations to optimize care and management of patients with valvular heart disease, and highlights the expanding indications for…
Cardiac Procedures in the ASC: A Timeline In 2016, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) added pacemaker implants to the list of approved procedures that could be performed and reimbursed in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). In 2019, diagnostic cath procedures were added to the list, and in 2020, six cardiac percutaneous interventional (PCI)…
As a seasoned placement firm for Physicians and Service Line Leaders, our Corazon team is always taken aback by both clients and candidates with unrealistic salary expectations that are not based on current market rates. This can not only cause frustration on both sides, but also become a terrible waste of resources. This situation can…
Savvy organizations can realize great success with cardiac procedural volumes in their cath labs with clinical excellence, operational efficiency, and positive impact on the bottom line. But sustaining volume or growing for the future can be a bit more challenging, especially in these uncertain times. Discussions around program growth are usually accompanied by questions about…
Women’s Specialty Centers (WSC) are often a collaboration between service lines as a business development strategy that benefits both partners. For example, Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) has a National Center for Excellence in Women’s Health (WHC) and the Knight Cardio-vascular Institute (KCI). Both are well-funded and nationally recognized but they previously lived in…
The concept of peer review within healthcare service lines can be likened to a type of preventive maintenance, much like hospital equipment that involves regularly-scheduled check-ups to avoid a costly fix. Because, why wait for an event to trigger an investigative review and subsequent expensive repair or replacement? In many situations the “retrospective” review comes…
Positioning Your Chest Pain Center for Success In a recent article published in Cath Lab Digest on the Rationale for Developing a Chest Pain Center, accreditation was briefly discussed as one way to position a chest pain center for success. Not only does accreditation provide a means to validate quality and improve program performance, but…
For many years and even now, socio-economic factors related to outcomes following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery have not been well understood. Many studies have evaluated outcomes using insurance status and race as variables, as they were easily accessible from patient databases, though the studies themselves were limited in their ability to define any…
With being just days past the much-desired coming of the New Year, and the highly-anticipated roll-out of two (maybe three) COVID-19 vaccines, now is the time to decide where the path of possibilities can once again begin to lead. Our healthcare industry still has a long road ahead, but as the bumps in the road…
