April 2011 Issues

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
Summary: CIOs are optimistic about having working EMRs in time to qualify for Medicare incentive payments, but it is taking so much time, attention, and budget resources that CIOs are not shopping for much unrelated IT this year. ♦ Hospitals are making progress in getting their employed physicians on an EMR, but community doctors are very far behind. ♦ Epic is the No. 1 vendor and is taking business from competitors, while GE stopped selling Centricity Enterprise for a year, and McKesson laid off a large chunk of its sales force. ♦ There are bumps in the Allscripts/Eclipsys merger road, but customers believe it will be a positive in the long run.

American College of Cardiology (ACC)
Summary: ACC wasn’t as exciting this year as in many years past, and the key trials reported mixed results: ♦ Edwards Lifesciences’ Sapien percutaneous aortic valve beat surgery in the PARTNER Cohort A trial. ♦ Abbott’s MitraClip for percutaneous mitral valve repair was safe and effective in high-risk patients in the EVEREST-II trial. ♦ New coronary stents – Abbott’s Absorb, Boston Scientific’s Promus Element, and Medtronic’s Resolute – all had good data, but the stent market has matured, and now everyone is vying for a larger piece of a non-expanding pie. ♦ Radial access for coronary interventions (stents) did not beat femoral access in the RIVAL trial, but use of radial access is expected to increase. ♦ Abiomed’s Impella failed to beat IABP in the PROTECT-II trial. ♦ Bayer and Johnson & Johnson’s Xarelto showed a negative net clinical benefit in VTE prevention, and the hepatic profile warrants further investigation.