February 2013

As a high-cost, high-revenue environment, cardiovascular patient management is fertile ground for a range of improvements driven through IT innovations. Advances in electronic tools, increasing focus on patient engagement, improvements in information sharing, financial incentives and more are converging to set the scene for a perfect storm of innovation in cardiac care.

Cardiovascular disease is probably the perfect disease for this convergence of IT-driven technology, says Sean Collins, MD, MSc, of Vanderbilt University’s emergency department (ED) in Nashville, because there are so many contributing factors that all result in abnormalities, fluid collection and retention. Tracking diet, medications and warning signs are vital to successfully managing heart failure, so tools...