Heart Rhythm Daily - Day 2, 2008 - (Page 3)

FR IDAY 3 M AY 1 6 , 2 0 0 8 Town Hall Meetings spur discussion Leaders of the Heart Rhythm Society Lindsay, MD, FHRS, outgoing President information systems and electronic medidiscussed some of the major issues cur- of the Society, and Bruce Wilkoff, MD, cal records to integrate health care plans. rently affecting the ﬁeld in Wednesday’s FHRS, Chair of the Heart Rhythm Society The presentation ended with Heart Town Hall Meetings with members and Health Policy Committee, the ﬁrst meeting Rhythm Society’s Chief Executive Ofﬁcer, practitioners. Health care delivery and lead explored problems with the health care James Youngblood, discussing the role the performance were the dominant topics of delivery system, changes in the future of Society will play in the debate, especially in discussion in the interactive sessions. ensuring patients have ongoing access “Interestingly, this year we had so to specialty care. many different topics that Society The second Town Hall Meeting leadership wanted to discuss, it was focused on devices and much of the a challenge to choose,” said Kathy discussion centered around lead perPontzer, Vice President of Health Policy formance and replacement. for the Society. “These two issues are The presentations referred to existvery timely right now within the ﬁeld ing recommendations from the Heart of electrophysiology and for the Heart Rhythm Society device performance Rhythm Society.” task force, including both pre-market The Society introduced the Town and post-market evaluations. Hall interactive meeting format last Also in the device meeting, Robert year with a one-issue session. This year Bruce Lindsay, MD, FHRS, recognizes Bruce Wilkoff, Hauser, MD, presented a summary there were two meetings back-to-back MD, FHRS, for his many contributions during his of the Lead Performance Conference, tenure as the Society’s Health Policy Committee Chair. on Wednesday. The ﬁrst topic discussed which was endorsed by the Society and was “Future Models of Health Care in took place in Boston last December. the United States: The Perfect Storm,” and delivery and reimbursement, implications The Heart Rhythm Society has convened the second was, “Device Safety and Alerts.” for private practice and universities, and a task force to develop recommendations Each one included six experts who spoke for the role of the Society in this changing that will address lead performance, pre10 minutes each before opening the room environment. and post-market surveillance, thresholds up to discussion. Michael Mirro, MD, began with a discus- for testing, regulatory considerations, “You hope, in the spirit of a Town Hall sion of the challenges of access to care, cost of communication, and analysis. The Society’s Meeting, that there is a lot of dialogue care and infrastructure of health care infor- recommendations on lead performance are among attendees,” Pontzer said. mation and interactivity between ofﬁces. expected to be published in HeartRhythm After an introduction from Chairs Bruce He discussed the difﬁculty of using health Journal next spring. Clinical Trials continued from page 1 arrhythmias in these patients. After a 12-month follow-up period, the researchers concluded that CRT does not appear to have an impact on the incidence of spontaneous ventricular arrhythmias in patients with mild heart failure. Finally, Bruce L. Wilkoff, MD, FHRS, presented the PREFER trial, which compared the value of monitoring ICD patients using remote interrogation monitoring devices versus transtelephonic monitoring (TTM). The trial was designed to evaluate whether remote interrogation of pacemaker therapy provides earlier diagnosis of clinically actionable events, such as new-onset AF or atrial tachyarrhythmia. The prospective, randomized trial analyzed data from 897 patients who were randomized 2:1 to have pacemaker follow up by a combination of in-person evaluations augmented by either remote interrogation or transtelephonic rhythm-strip evaluations. Results of the 12-month trial showed that clinically actionable events are detected more quickly and frequently in patients using remote interrogation versus TTM. Fewer than 2 percent of events were detected in patients using TTM, while more than 60 percent were detected in patients using remote interrogation. http://www.hrsonline.org http://www.hrsonline.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Heart Rhythm Daily - Day 2, 2008

Contents Town Hall Meetings Live Cases Board Review

Heart Rhythm Daily - Day 2, 2008

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