Critical Pathways In Cardiovascular Medicine

Full-text medical e-book.

Critical pathways addresses the need for delivering cost-effective medical care while maintaining the quality of patient care. The book begins with an overview of how to implement the critical pathways of cardiology, their goals, rationale, and shortcomings. Most of the text is devoted to practical information including numerous tables, checklists, algorithms, and examples of pathways, helping to make this volume quick and easy to use for cardiologists, internists, and other healthcare professionals involved in cardiac patient care. Clinical trials and successful critical pathways already in use at institutions around the country are also discussed to provide the evidence-based reasoning for the pathways and suggest ways of applying the system to emergency department, inpatient and outpatient care.

A collection of the most current and innovative presentations in path-based collaborative practices, this second of two volumes focuses on the design, implementation and analysis of outcomes in cardiovascular care. As in Health Care Outcomes, the authors present two to three standard clinical pathways for each DRG, and then show how those pathways can be manipulated to alter outcomes. Cardiovascular Outcomes covers a full range of medical and surgical cardiovascular outcomes. A comprehensive collection of critical pathways and outcomes maps being used by leading hospitals and health care agencies around the country, this is an important reference for developing path-based care models or revising critical paths and outcomes maps.

In the four pages committed to a discussion of myocardial infarction in the first edition of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, published in 1950, there was no mention of use of the laboratory for management of patients. Thirty years later, when the first edition of Braunwald’s Heart Disease, A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine was published, 2 out of the 1943 pages in the text contained a discussion of the laboratory examinations in acute myocardial infarction. Our knowledge base of the multitude of ways that physicians can and should use the clinical chemistry laboratory has expanded dramatically since these classic texts were published. The nomenclature has changed: terms such as “cardiac enzymes” have given way to “cardiac biomarkers. ” The number of assays has multiplied, and the operating characteristics of available assays are impr- ing at a gratifying but dizzying rate. We now use biomarkers to diagnose cardiovascular diseases and also to frame our treatment strategies. Thus, there is a clear need for a scholarly compilation of the state of the art of cardiac biomarkers. Dr. David Morrow has expertly edited an authoritative book that answers this need. The 34 chapters in Cardiovascular Biomarkers: Pathophysiology and Disease Mana- ment were written by a group of individuals who are internationally recognized thought leaders and experts in clinical and laboratory medicine.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

The Topol Solution gives you a complete print and multimedia package consisting of Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, Third Edition, a DVD, and access to a wealth of online resources. Updated throughout by renowned international authorities, Dr. Topol's best-selling text provides a comprehensive, contemporary view of every area of cardiovascular medicine--preventive cardiology; clinical cardiology; cardiovascular imaging; electrophysiology and pacing; invasive cardiology and surgical techniques; heart failure and transplantation; molecular cardiology; and vascular biology and medicine. The bound-in DVD contains the full text, plus heart sounds, an image/chart/table bank, and videos of procedures--catheterization, CT/MRI, echocardiography, electrophysiology and pacing, intravascular ultrasonography, nuclear cardiology, and surgery. The Topol Solution Website includes the fully searchable text, heart sounds, and an image/chart/table bank downloadable to PowerPoint--plus questions and answers from The Cleveland Clinic Cardiology Board Review; a PDA download of cardiology drug facts; quarterly articles from Critical Pathways in Cardiology, and links to other cardiology Websites.FEATURES: - Thoroughly updated Third Edition of best-selling Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, plus DVD and instant access to a wealth of online resources- THE TEXT: - Renowned international contributors- A comprehensive, contemporary view of every area of cardiovascular medicine-preventive cardiology; clinical cardiology; cardiovascular imaging; electrophysiology and pacing; invasive cardiology and surgical techniques; heart failure and transplantation; molecular cardiology; and vascular biology and medicine- Focus on clinical material, particularly the application of clinical research to practice- Each chapter includes comments on current controversies and pioneering insights into future developments- THE BOUND-IN DVD: - Full content of book- Heart sounds-a