3.) Ultrasound: The darling of the cath/angio lab— Ultrasound continues to play a dominant role as the imaging modality of choice in cardiology — especially as cost continues to dominate the conversation. With that, premium cardiology ultrasound systems are getting more sophisticated. Two highlights on display at ACC14 include Siemens' Abdominal Vascular Release of the ACUSON SC2000 ultrasound system, only recently FDA approved, with 64-image channels and new workflow improvements. Also, Esaote's latest ultrasound offering, CrystaLine, which the company says enables high-quality images at deeper tissue levels in the body, ideal for patients who are obese and more difficult to scan.
4.) What about cardiovascular IT? Cardiology departments have started to realize the drawbacks of their siloed information systems and manufacturers are offering them integration solutions.
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McKesson showcased their new integrated workflow solution, Qualitative Intelligence Communications System (QICS), which provides critical result management, echo interpretation variability and echo performance variability solutions, and is intended to help hospitals achieve Intersocietal Accreditation Commission accreditation.
"It's a struggle to extract [the information] from the database but QICS gathers all points and allows them to prove it's effective," said Kyle Souligne, product marketing manager for cardiology at McKesson.
GE Healthcare's solution, Centricity Cardio Enterprise, includes Centricity Cardio Workflow. The solution helps hospitals manage the whole cardiology department, including scheduling, procedural data monitoring, report generation, billing, and inventory management.
Don Woodlock, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT, said that it can take 20 to 25 minutes to "put that puzzle together." Using GE's technology, Oklahoma State University Medical Center was able to save 20 minutes per cath lab study. At ACC, GE also showcased an expanded Centricity Cardio Workflow offering, which includes a new Invasive Peripheral Vascular module, in order to help cardiologists assess, document and report on the patient's peripheral vessels.
5.) Dose reduction— Toshiba America Medical Systems showcased its Infinix-i dose monitoring capabilities, including its Dose Tracking System (DTS). The company says that it's the first and only real-time visualization technology on the X-ray market that helps manage dose.
The system enables the clinician to more easily see how much radiation they have distributed in certain areas. Also, after the procedure, a summary dose report can automatically be generated.
