EP Lab Digest - March 2008 - (Page 16)

16 SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW MARCH 2008 Our Medical Director, Ali Al-Mudamgha, MD. SPOTLIGHT Continued from page 14 with Dr. Pappone. When he returned, we all sat down and discussed how we were going to begin these cases. We discussed pre-, intraand post-care, how many cases we were going to do per week, what type of staff needed to be present during these cases, etc. All of the staff were aware of their roles and expectations. When our very first atrial fibrillation ablation took place in April of 2003, the procedure time was nine hours and 30 minutes. Now we perform two atrial fibrillation ablations per week. Our procedure time now is approximately two hours and 30 minutes. Electrophysiologist Jamal Ahmed, MD during a case. Better than Ever: The “New and Improved” Spotlight Interview! Readers, EP Lab Digest’s Spotlight Interview questions have recently been revised for 2008! Go to “www.eplabdigest.com” to download an updated list of questions. For more information, please visit: www.sjhsyr.org/sjhhc/ We pride ourselves on the personalized care we provide our patients and our efficiency. In addition, our Medical Director is unique; when he decided he wanted to start performing atrial fibrillation ablations, he traveled to Milan and worked Special Bonus Feature! To see more photos of this hospital and staff, go to “www.eplabdigest.com” and click on the March Spotlight link! We can’t wait to see your responses! In the News: More Elderly Americans Are Living with Heart Failure The number of elderly individuals newly diagnosed with heart failure has declined during the past ten years, but the number of those living with the condition has increased, according to a report in the February 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. “Heart failure affects nearly 5 million people in the United States, and more than 300,000 die each year as a result of the disease. Heart failure is primarily a disease of elderly persons and, consequently, places a significant and growing economic burden on the Medicare program,” according to background information in the article. The number of people age 65 or older hospitalized for heart failure from 1984 to 2002 rose by more than 30 percent.“Estimates of the incidence [rate of new cases] and prevalence [percentage of the population affected] of heart failure in elderly persons translate directly into projections of resource use for the Medicare program, so accurate estimates are essential.” Lesley H. Curtis, PhD, of the Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues analyzed information obtained from the files of 622,789 Medicare patients age 65 or older who were diagnosed with heart failure between 1994 and 2003.The rate of new heart failure occurrences and the number of people living with heart failure were measured. The yearly occurrence of heart failure decreased from 32 per 1,000 person-years (years of observation time during which each person is at risk to develop the disease) in 1994 to 29 per 1,000 person-years in 2003. A sharper decline was seen in Medicare patients age 80 to 84 (from 57.5 to 48.4 per 1,000 person-years), while a slight increase was seen in those age 65 to 69 (from 17.5 to 19.3 per 1,000 person-years). The number of patients living with the condition increased steadily from about 140,000 to approximately 200,000 with more men living with the disease than women each year.“The proportion of beneficiaries with a heart failure diagnosis grew from 90 per 1,000 in 1994 to 120 per 1,000 in 2000, and remained at about 120 per 1,000 through 2003,” the authors write. “Although the incidence of heart failure has declined somewhat during the past decade, modest survival gains have resulted in an increase in the number of patients living with heart failure,” the authors conclude.“Identifying optimal strategies for the treatment and management of heart failure will become increasingly important as the size of the Medicare population grows.” Source: Arch Intern Med 2008;168[4]:418-424. http://www.sjhsyr.org/sjhhc/ http://www.eplabdigest.com http://www.eplabdigest.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EP Lab Digest - March 2008

EP Lab Digest - March 2008 ECG 101: The Case of a Dizzy Patient with a Left Bundle Branch Block Delayed Defibrillation: Research and Results Interview with Paul S. Chan, MD Contents Letter from the Editor Spotlight Interview: St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center Parent Heart Watch from 36,000 Feet… Perspectives from the Annual Leadership Conference Clinical Trial Overview: 2008 Are MRI-Safe Pacemakers and Leads on the Horizon? Q & A with J. Rod Gimbel, MD Navigating Tortuous Coronary Sinus Anatomy Using a Bipolar Lead Email Discussion Group: March 2008 Guidelines on ECG Interpretation Spotlight Interview Update: What Have We Learned? The Value of Educating Staff Events Calendar Industry News and Products Classifieds Advertisers Index In Memoriam

EP Lab Digest - March 2008

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