Ohio-ACC Newsletter, December 2020 |
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Sanjay Gandhi, MD, MBA, FACC |
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Dear Ohio-ACC Colleague,
The long stretch and current increase in Covid-19 cases in Ohio and across the country seems exhausting and stressful. As we work to treat our patients, offer comfort, and move forward through uncertainty, we need to be kind to our colleagues, our loved ones, and ourselves as well. Please take a little time for yourself, and reach out to others in your circle to recharge your own reserves. Ohio-ACC and your colleagues are here with you in this moment together. Please let us know if Ohio-ACC can support you in any way.
In Case You Missed It:
Ohio-ACC 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting
We would like to thank our meeting sponsors: Alnylam (Platinum), AstraZeneca (Platinum),
Cincinnati Children's (Gold), Janssen (Gold), and Portola (Gold).
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Congratulations to our ePoster winners:
1st place Oral Competition: Dr. Tom Kai Ming Wang, CCF
2nd place Oral Competition: Dr. Jeremy Slivnick, OSU
1st year Research: Dr. Akash Goyal, OSU
2nd year Research: Dr. Obadah Aqtash, UC
3rd yr/Advanced Research: Dr. Michael Biersmith, OSU
1st year Case: Dr. Blair Suter, UC
2nd year Case: Dr. Lauren Hassen, OSU
3rd yr/Advanced Case: Dr. Saurav Uppal, OSU
CVT Case: Ms. Katherine Romanowicz, UC
Resident Case: Dr. Keith Bullinger, CWRU-MetroHealth
Upcoming Webinar: Unraveling hATTR Amyloidosis
Save the Date - Virtual Spring Summit on April 10, 2021
Mark your calendar for the Ohio-ACC 2021 Virtual Spring Summit on Saturday, April 10, 2021. Sessions will include Update on Medical Treatment Strategies in Heart Failure, Session 2 - What's Hot in EP, Session 3 - Possibilities & Controversies in IC, and the 2021 Carl J. Wiggers Memorial Lecture featuring Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, FSCAI, FESC.
Holding Providers Harmless From Medicare Cuts During
COVID-19 Act of 2020
Please contact your member of Congress and ask them to cosponsor H.R. 8702, the Holding Providers Harmless From Medicare Cuts During COVID-19 Act of 2020, a bill to halt pending Medicare payment cuts resulting from the proposed, necessary evaluation and management (E&M) code changes slated for implementation on January 1, 2021. This critical legislation recognizes the importance of implementing long-awaited increases for E&M services while also avoiding potentially harmful cuts for clinicians due to Medicare's budget neutrality requirements. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to halt the implementation of any payment reductions that could inadvertently limit patient access to care as well as further exacerbate the financial instability of health care practices.
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Happy Holidays!
Wishing you a very happy and healthy holiday season! I hope that you'll have the opportunity to share some well deserved quality time with your families.
Contact Us
If Gwen Goldfarb, our chapter executive, or I can be of assistance to you, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Sanjay
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Fellow in Training Activities |
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Jeopardy
The FIT Jeopardy competition at ACC’s Annual Scientific Session has become one of the most popular events of the meeting. To determine which team competes in the national virtual competition at ACC.21, we will participate in a virtual FIT Jeopardy competition offered by ACC. We look forward to an exciting competition! Our Ohio teams include: Canton Medical Education Foundation/Aultman Hospital/NEOMED Program, Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center-Case Western Reserve University, Summa Health System, The Ohio State University, and University of Cincinnati.
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FIT Leadership Series
The Ohio-ACC Fellow in Training Council has developed an FIT Leadership Series. The goal of the series is to educate FITs on how to maximize fellowship time to work towards accomplishing career goals, and to highlight the important considerations of finding a job. The series will cover important topics for FITs such as important considerations for the job search post-training (academics vs private practice, job contracts), financial planning, the path to FACC, specific requirements required by the ACC during fellowship training, and prerequisites for board exams.
The first in the series is entitled Fellowship Roadmap. David Harris, MD, FACC, FASE, FSCMR, Echocardiography Director & Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Director, University of Cincinnati, discusses meeting graduation requirements, the specifics of COCATs guidelines set by the ACC during fellowship training, prerequisites for board exams, and research guidance. Watch the webinar here.
Stay tuned for our upcoming FIT webinars in 2021!
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Ohio Women in Cardiology: Opportunities |
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We are delighted to share with you the opportunity to participate in two important projects to spotlight our Ohio Woman in Cardiology (MD, DO, MBBS). And the good news is that our female cardiologists can participate in both via one streamlined online submission form.
1. Ohio-ACC Women in Cardiology Spotlight Campaign
The Ohio-ACC’s own Dr. Varinder Randhawa, currently a clinical research fellow at Cleveland Clinic, helped to co-create a Women’s Media Campaign with her colleague Dr. Laura Banks and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society staff showcasing Cardiovascular Women in Medicine, Surgery and Science. She and Dr. Zarina Sharalaya, current interventional fellow at Cleveland Clinic, have graciously agreed to spearhead a similar project for the Ohio-ACC with our Ohio-ACC WIC working group. We believe that spotlighting the amazing women in cardiology across Ohio will be an ideal way to boost mentorship opportunities, spotlight our female cardiologists, and highlight a cardiology career to our talent pipeline.
2. The ACC Midwest WIC Alliance
The ACC Midwest WIC Alliance (including the Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin Chapters) was awarded an ACC Chapter Grant to fund the “She Looks Like a Cardiologist” campaign. The campaign’s goal is to entice high school girls to choose cardiology as a profession.
- A portion of this project is to make a “photowall” of the Alliance states’ WIC faculty and fellows-in-training and create a “slide show of awesomeness.”
- The photowall will serve as a backdrop for the planned February 2021 virtual conference event for the high school students and used in advertising the campaign to young women.
- The slide show will consist of your photo and your brief response to the following statement: “She looks like a Cardiologist who…”
ACTION REQUESTED TO PARTICIPATE
Use this link to submit your professional photo (i.e. official faculty or fellow portrait or similar quality) and statement response(s). Brief, bold statements will be most effective. Consider who you were in high school and what would have inspired someone like you. Also consider relatable circumstances like poverty, language/cultural barriers, gender stereotypes that may be affecting a high school student’s journey to medicine. By submitting your information, you are consenting to allow us to use your statement(s) and photo in the advertising capacities outlined above.
We hope you will consider participating in these two important campaigns. As you know, Diversity and Inclusion = Better Healthcare.
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Bempedoic Acid
Kelly Bartsch, PharmD, BCPS, CLS, Specialty Practice Pharmacist – Ambulatory Care
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
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Bempedoic acid is a new medication for the management of hyperlipidemia approved by the FDA this year based on results from the CLEAR trials. It is indicated in patients with established atherosclerotic disease and/or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia who are not meeting their LDL-C targets despite diet and maximally tolerated statin therapy. Bempedoic acid is available as both a single-agent tablet (Nexletol®) and a combination pill with ezetimibe (Nexlizet®). This oral medication is a prodrug activated in the liver and kidneys and is thought to result in fewer myalgias than statins due to a lack of activation in skeletal muscle. In the liver, bempedoic acid is active in the same mevalonic acid pathway as statins, but works on an enzyme upstream from HMG-CoA reductase. As a result, it has a similar mechanism of action to statins: reducing cholesterol synthesis to prompt an upregulation of LDL-C receptors on the liver and ultimately an increased uptake of LDL-C from the circulation. Though it works in the same pathway as statins, efficacy is lower, with an expected ~21% lowering of LDL-C when used as monotherapy. Additionally, cardiovascular risk reduction remains an unknown, with the CLEAR Outcomes trial results not expected until late 2022.
As noted above, bempedoic acid is typically associated with fewer muscle symptoms than statins, but it does have several important side effects to be aware of. The medication is most commonly associated with upper respiratory symptoms and abdominal pain. Additionally, patients frequently demonstrate lab changes after the first four weeks of therapy, including decreased hemoglobin, increased platelets, increased creatinine, increased liver function tests, and increased creatinine kinase. These abnormalities do not indicate a need to stop bempedoic acid, but are expected to persist throughout therapy. The major side effects that should be discussed with patients are hyperuricemia and tendon rupture. Hyperuricemia can occur in any patient on bempedoic acid, but is most commonly seen in patients with a history of hyperuricemia and gout, and should therefore be used with caution in this population. Tendon rupture is much less common, occurring in 0.5% of patients across the bempedoic acid trials, but can be significant when it occurs. It is more likely to occur in patients otherwise at risk, including those over sixty years old, patients on steroids, and those with a history of renal failure or tendon disorders. While these limitations do exist, bempedoic acid is an exciting new oral therapy that will hopefully help patients with limited additional options to achieve previously unreachable LDL-C goals.
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ACC Cardiovascular Summit Virtual
Register for the ACC Cardiovascular Summit Virtual, which will feature two days of live sessions (beginning Feb. 1) plus three months of access to on-demand sessions and poster presentations focused on business strategies to improve cardiovascular care and patient outcomes, and much more. Get complete details.
MedAxiom Report: CV Provider Compensation and Production Survey
MedAxiom, an ACC Company, has released its eighth annual Cardiovascular Provider Compensation and Production Survey. The report contains comprehensive data and analysis for cardiovascular organizations facing a new normal amid effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data findings reveal important trends across cardiology, surgery, advanced practice providers and non-clinical compensation as many programs are reevaluating compensation models and the definition of work productivity. Download the full report.
New ACC/AHA Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Guideline Encourages Shared Decision-Making
ACC Statement Outlines COVID-19 Recommendations For Patients
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACC has convened a number of scientific and educational sessions with experts from around the world and across a spectrum of disciplines. From these discussions, many points of consensus have emerged about best practices for slowing the spread of the virus and mitigating its harm. Building off of these points, the ACC has developed the following five simple measures clinicians can encourage patients to embrace this fall: 1) Recommend wearing a face mask, social distancing and washing hands; 2) Encourage influenza vaccination; 3) Allay fears and remind patients not to ignore symptoms or delay treatment; 4) Reinforce the importance of medication adherence; and 5) Assess how patients are coping, proactively address confusion and help find solutions. Read more and download clinician and patient infographics.
New ACC/AHA HF Performance and Quality Measures Released
A new measure set to evaluate heart failure (HF) care in the inpatient and outpatient settings was released Nov. 2 and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Developed by the ACC and the American Heart Association, the measure set is in accordance with the 2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA HF guideline update. Paul A. Heidenreich, MD, MS, FACC, chair of the writing committee, et al., updated the 2011 HF performance measure set, and developed "a comprehensive HF measure set" that includes 13 performance measures, four quality measures, one structural measure and two rehabilitation performance measures. Read more. |
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Renew Your ACC Membership |
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Your ACC membership renewal deadline is just around the corner on December 10th. This year, the ACC community has rallied together to face unprecedented challenges to our practices and our communities. We are stronger together and your voice is essential as we continue to fight to overcome the challenges of today and work toward a better tomorrow.
We want to be sure your voice is at the table in 2021. That’s why we’ve kept our membership prices the same—just as we have for the last five years. Additionally, if you’re unable to pay your full renewal amount—contact us. Your membership is worth more than a single year’s dues payment, and we’re happy to work with you on alternate payment options for 2021.
As an organization, we’ve been hard at work connecting you with colleagues, pursuing partnerships, publishing science and guidelines and creating resources so you can respond to today’s care challenges. Here’s a snapshot of just 5 of the ways we are supporting you now:
- ACC is helping you respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with clinical guidance, front line perspectives, coding and billing updates and more in the COVID-19 Hub.
- ACC is advocating for members’ interests, urging lawmakers, regulators and private insurers to address COVID-19-related issues like telemedicine, patient & clinician safety, provider relief funding and more.
- ACC’s NCDR and ACC Accreditation Services teams are working to mitigate administrative effort and help participating hospitals and institutions continue to understand and manage the care provided to cardiovascular patients, including those with COVID-19.
- ACC is giving clinicians more flexibility in maintaining certification by launching the Collaborative Maintenance Pathway, and by working with the American Board of Internal Medicine to extend the deadline for meeting requirements into 2021.
- ACC is working to address disparities in care and outcomes by taking tangible steps to foster a College and profession that is diverse, inclusive and representative of the patients we treat.
Additionally, at the Chapter level, we’ve been hard at work providing you with localized opportunities for involvement, education and networking—plus providing you with representation to lawmakers and decision makers at the local and state levels.
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The Ohio-ACC is committed to promoting the clinical and academic growth of its members across the state and facilitating interaction between members and their hospital systems and practices. To that end, we have set up a Grand Rounds Hub on https://www.ohioacc.org. If you have a lecture that you would be willing to give for grand rounds or other meetings to audiences across Ohio, then we welcome you to be a part of our Grand Rounds Hub. Please respond via this link. |
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