cardiac network: COUNTS ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE

By any measure, cardiac medicine has recently been forced to begin keeping pace with non-traditional technologic innovations. A new generation of at-home cardiac monitors may achieve what was incomprehensible only a decade ago. The missing calculation was the frequent inability to match available technologies with a true human network. For Cardiac Network, with its wide inventory of cardiac monitors, breakthroughs could not happen fast enough. The reason may have had less to do with the numbers (more than 700,000 annual cardiac-related deaths in the United States) than with keeping promises. “Both my grandparents died from heart disease,” responded CEO Michael Swartzburg, acting CEO of Cardiac Network, when asked what motivates him each day. “It’s not called the silent killer for no reason. There are people who go in for one reason, finding out inadvertently they need bypass surgery. One of the things were looking at is technology that will monitor someone’s heart functions as many different ways as we can.” Swartzburg can now point to the perfect synergy, as Cardiac Network has apparently completed the mosaic of process and personnel. Though part of a young industry, Cardiac Network has assembled a team with more than fifty years of experience in critical care delivery.

As CEO, Michael Swartzburg exemplifies the sort of savvy cadre that aims at giving promising young companies with the tools to shape their growth. Swartzburg has variously succeeded as a CPA with Ernst-Whinney and as a corporate controller, engaged in a complicated and successful merger at cardiac Pathways (with Boston Medical). “What we’re seeing is that in the medical world, technology is playing just as much a factor as other forms of biosciences and pharmaceuticals in how patients get diagnosed and treated.”

Based in San Francisco, the Cardiac Network has pioneered the use of technology to monitor hearts and potential life-threatening incidents. Because of its reactive affordability, people have the potential for accessing not only preventive but diagnostic evaluations…potentially long before they might suffer from the deadly outward signs of heart disease.

The issues of technological reliability occur frequently in Michael’s efforts: “merger” is a word he frequently uses. Cornell University considers the process of merging technologies, in myriad forms, with medicine in its many needs, notes technology qua medical treatment as an “emerging new paradigm.”

Earlier uses of portable cardiac monitors created a literal, as well as technological burden. The data could be collected form the device, of course…but the devices were cumbersome, both to the person wearing it as well as to the person who would ultimately receive the device for interpretation.

“Let’s take the person who is having some kind of pressure on their chest. They don’t know if it’s heartburn...they don’t know if it’s anxiety…now they've got a decision to make. And it’s even worse when it’s a parent or grandparent: they’re responsible for making a decision (for the other party). Do you send them to the emergency room? We can take some of that uncertainty. They have their own monitor in the house, and within five minutes we have their EKG.”

Before the new generation of data equipment, Cardiac Network could not have existed. Instead, the lack of digital signals meant that data would be lost, or even worse, interpreted after the patient might have already had a cardiac incident. “There’s always been a focus in the medical world to treat diseases with drugs…certainly surgeries have been out there…equipment (was) not at the forefront of actually preventive medicine.”

Noting the increasing importance of monitoring does not diminish, Swartzberg noted, should actually enhance the uses of exist ing techniques and pharmaceuticals. “Technology is coming into its own, to determine when to use pharmaceuticals….more timely. We’re giving doctors the ability to monitor (t0) allow early diagnosis and treatment before it becomes more serious.”

Experts are increasingly identifying the application of “Moore’s Law” to the crossroads of medical care and technology. The technological capacity that makes Cardiac Network ‘tick’ is relatively new. The antecedent technology, despite itself being fairly new, suggests just how much new ground is being planted by Cardiac Network. In 1989, for example, some of the earliest literature described the risks and benefits of using cardiac alert equipment, at what now seems fairly un ad vanced technology. Interestingly, one of the major issues was how to enhance the aspect of personal communication in gaining patient data.

“We’re looking at technology to provide a better connection between doctor and patient.” The few competing cardiac monitoring services have relied on traditional medical models. To achieve its goals, it seems clear that cardiac Network has to deliver on the innovations in a true network.

“Technology segregates the population into various forms of severity and identifies varying degrees in diseases because each one is treated differently.”

Cardiac Network’s deep roster of physician affiliated networking is almost certainly going to set the standard in cardiac monitoring. The reason is based upon the improved quality inherent in a model of delivery known as Medical Practice-Driven Models and Requirements.

The fee structure for Cardiac Network aims at achieving affordability…prompting comparisons with the life-saving, and affordable monthly rates, features available at the touch of a button in many models of automobiles. Cardiac Network even completed their 2009 fourth quarter by offering monitors at or below cost.

By merging a medically-oriented management team, the sharpest technology, and arguably the best collaborative medical teams available, Cardiac Network is investing in setting, rather than simply predicting, service trends.

The deliberative outcome of such priorities will result, at the minimum, in uniquely unobtrusive “smart homecare.”

“Think about it. If you addressed a survey of the general population…did you knew there was a device about the size of a cell phone that could actually measure your EKG at home: and that then, if you were feeling kind of funny, then you could hook it up an d transfer the information to a monitoring station…within five minutes, giving you, your doctor feedback? Bhatt they would say is that they thought they had to make an appointment.”

The core values of this convergence reflect heart monitors that are lighter, affordable, and supported by incomparable staffing.

Cardiac Network has succeeded in blending these features…the task ahead is getting out the word, and then the cardiac units.

Download and listen to the live interview at geccopr.com/cardiac/