COVID-19 surges in Texas, Florida and Arizona have filled hospital ICUs and some facilities are looking to expand capacity. One of the issues hospitals confront when adding ICU beds is finding enough staff to provide ICU care.

The rate of children with complex or chronic conditions increased among those with private insurance and Medicaid from 2010 to 2017, according to a study in Pediatrics, but while there was a small decrease in readmission rates overall, rates dropped more rapidly among patients with private insurance. Readmission rate decreases were similar, however, when adjusted for risks.

The CMS released the results of the Quality Payment Program's Merit-based Incentive Payment System for the 2018 performance year. Nearly all clinicians in MIPS avoided a negative payment adjustment, 84% received positive payment adjustment after earning exceptional performance designation, and the number of clinicians who participated in MIPS through Advanced Alternative Payment Models increased by 15,000 to more than 356,000 in 2018 compared with the previous year.

Vice President Mike Pence said supplies of personal protective equipment remain strong, but the Trump administration will still release guidance encouraging front-line health care workers to "preserve and reuse" PPE. He also said that states that have reported a recent increase in COVID-19 cases must do more to restrict public gatherings to slow the spread of the virus.

An analysis of Oregon Medicaid claims and enrollment data from January 2010 to June 2017 showed the state's implementation of the Alternative Payment and Advanced Care Model resulted in a 42.4% relative reduction on the price-weighted volume of traditional primary care services in participating community health centers in the states. The decline was fully driven by lower use of imaging services in the CHCs.

Close to half of Americans have communicated remotely with a health care provider since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, but just 21% have talked with their provider about using health IT, researchers reported in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. That lack of dialogue might negatively affect patient-provider communications and patient engagement, said Dr. David Haggstrom, senior study author.

Black patients who undergo angioplasty have a greater risk of heart attack or death several years after the procedure compared with white patients, according to an analysis of data from 10 clinical trials. The disparities persisted even after accounting for health factors such as smoking habits and underlying conditions, researchers reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions.

Patients hospitalized for heart failure who had insufficient calorie intake had a higher risk of readmission, and had more hospital days when readmitted, compared with those who had sufficient calorie intake, researchers reported in the journal JACC: Heart Failure. Patients with insufficient calorie intake also had less improvement in Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire clinical summary scores.

Older US veterans who did not have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease but started taking statin medication had a 25% decreased risk of death from any cause, compared with those who did not get a new statin prescription, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Mortality risks linked to cardiovascular events, including heart attack or stroke, were reduced by 20% among statin users, while the overall risk of a cardiovascular event was 8% lower.

The ACC and American Heart Association launched a Guideline Optimization effort in 2019, with the goal of reviewing and evaluating the guideline strategy and operations while developing comprehensive recommendations to ensure clinical guidelines continue to be relevant, timely, trustworthy and accessible. The end-result: 30 key recommendations that if implemented as specified could potentially reduce the time to develop and produce a guideline by 50%, while enhancing the look, feel and usability of the document in both electronic and print form. Read more.

The ACC.20/WCC Meeting Coverage Page on ACC.org now features post-meeting content to reinforce the teaching points and education presented during ACC.20/WCC Virtual. Catch up on all the scientific coverage, including summary slides of the hottest late-breaking clinical trials, perspective pieces from the experts, patient case quizzes and visual abstracts. Topics include invasive cardiovascular angiography and intervention, cardiac surgery, dyslipidemia, noninvasive imaging, vascular medicine, and more. Stay tuned as new content is added to the ACC.20/WCC Meeting Coverage Page.