Heartsafe news: Our weekly update on what’s happening in the world of heart safety and noninvasive cardiology

President Obama envisions doctors earning salaries, not fees
President Barack Obama gave Americans a glimpse of the healthcare future as he sees it, holding up as an example the well-known Cleveland Clinic. In reporting the story, The New York Times described a more modest, but similar system, Bassett Healthcare. The major point in common: both the Cleveland Clinic and Bassett Healthcare pay doctors salaries instead of making them earn fees by providing specific services.

Obama prefers the salary system. He said Thursday at the current fee-based system rewards doctors and nurses for providing the most expensive types of care available rather than for providing the care patients need.

The Times article notes that at Bassett and at the Cleveland Clinic, physicians have no incentive to order expensive tests:

No matter how many tests or procedures are performed, they take home the same amount of money. Medical costs at Bassett are lower than those at 90 percent of the hospitals in New York, while the quality of care ranks among the top 10 percent in the nation, surveys show.

The American Medical Association has historically backed the fee-for-service pay system used by smaller practices. The Wall Street Journal, in its article about the president’s recent visit to the Cleveland Clinic, noted that doctors “tend to be fiercely independent,” resisting joining multispeciality clinics that require teamwork and computerized record-keeping to improve communications and cut costs.

However, larger practices and healthcare systems seem to be on the rise. While more than a third of doctors in their 60s and older work in traditional small practices, 90 percent of doctors in their early 40s are part of larger medical groups, according to the Times.

“I kissed him goodbye. I told him I loved him.”
Drowning is the second leading cause of death for children under 14 years of age in Maryland.

Maryland AED law proponents wants MD AEDs at every pool (click to view)

Connor Freed was five years old when he died. “He was actually very good in the water,” his father Tom Freed said. A swimmer did mouth-to-mouth resucitation; a lifeguard performed CPR; someone called 911.

But the lifeguards were not allowed to use a defibrillator. “I think it would have restarted his heart,” his mother Debbie said. “I [am] not going to let this happen to another family.”

The Freeds, Cardiac Science AED expert Cheryl Anne DeHart, and Mary and Bill Becker (whose son also may have benefited from AED use at a Maryland pool— read the Beckers’ story) are pushing for a Maryland AED law that would require every Maryland public pool to have an automated external defibrillator (AED). Lifeguards would be trained and expected to use defibrillators in case of cardiac arrest.

Five times dead, Chris Knight crusades with Cardiac Science
In this week’s Cardiovascular Business magazine, businessman Chris Knight writes, “I died, five times to be exact.”

A Naperville, IL, police officer was just a block or so away from Knight when he went into sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Knight says, “She was equipped with and trained to use an automated external defibrillator (AED). The city of Naperville has provided all of their officers with an AED in their patrol vehicles. Because of this policy, I was able to have a chance at surviving.”

He fell into SCA again in the ambulance, then three more times as he underwent heart surgery.

Now Knight, vice president of retail sales for KVII Television in Amarillo, Texas, is working with Cardiac Science to provide 100 AEDs over the next five years.

“My staff at KVII, in a combined effort with Great Plains AG Credit, Cardiac Science – a company that offers AEDs as well as other cardiac care devices – and the Cardiologist Center of Amarillo, has begun a campaign to provide the entire Panhandle of Texas with AEDs.”

Naperville first responders have AEDs, and he’s modelling the Amarillo AED program after that system. He also wants rural-area citizens to have a chance to make it to the nearest health care facility.

33-year-old Sammamish, WA, mother of two saved
Shannon Holliway lives virtually around the corner from our Cardiac Science headquarters in Bothell, WA. Her husband helped save her life by starting CPR before Eastside Fire & Rescue arrived with an AED.

I first met Shannon at Inspire.com, then found her story online. Watch her short video below.

Photo credit: RRichardHobbs

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• Powerheart AED G3 Plus
• Powerheart AED G3 Fully Automatic and Semi-automatic
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• AED Program Management

Maryland AED law

Last 5 posts

• Cardiac Science AEDs in Spain [VIDEO] - April 4th, 2011
• Cardiac Science wins first major public access defibrillation program in Europe - March 30th, 2011
• Georgia Park saves 5 lives with AEDs - March 24th, 2011
• Sad stories, avoidable deaths? - March 23rd, 2011
• Texas school's AED saves 6-year-old's life - March 22nd, 2011

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