Featured Symposium
hTEE Trauma Symposium January 18, 2013 at 1:30 PM Scottsdale, AZ Click on photo to register! |
Featured Conferences
26th EAST Annual Scientific Assembly
January 15-19, 2013
Booth #8
Scottsdale, AZ
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Society of Critical Care Medicine 42nd Critical Care Congress January 19-23, 2013 Booth #1218 San Juan, Puerto Rico |
STS 49th Annual Meeting
Booth #142-144
STS/AATS Tech-Con 2013
Booth #12
January 26-30, 2013
Los Angeles, CA |
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Photo Gallery
 | Ahmad Sheikh MD cardiothoracic surgeon, from Stanford University Hospital, examining one of his surgical patients post-operatively.
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 | Jessica Stratton PA-C from
Henry Ford Hospital utilizing hTEE to assess the cardiac function of a transplant patient. |
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 | Edwin Weeks MD scanning a post-op cardiac surgery patient in NYU Langone Medical Center's CTICU.
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 | | The Zura EVO (left of center) in use in the ECMO room at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. |
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Size Matters
in Trauma
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Contact US 
info@imacorinc.com 
www.ImaCorInc.com 1.516.393.0970 1.877.244.0657 |
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Contributions
Should you wish to submit an article to our next monthly newsletter, please contact Sheila McGarrigle at newsletter@imacorinc.com.
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Comparison of hTEE and Swan-Ganz Catheter for the Evaluation of Volume Status in Patients Post AVR*
Sandeep Krishnan MD, Jennie Ngai MD, Michael Schlame MD, Lawrence Rabinowitz MD
NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY
(Excerpted, please click here to read full abstract)
Methods: This was a prospective observational study of 20 patients age 73 +/- 9 (57-89) years who underwent elective aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis. All included patients had severe aortic stenosis with a peak gradient of greater than 50mm Hg, and left ventricular hypertrophy with a septal wall thickness of greater than 1.1 cm. Exclusion criteria included presence of multi-valvular disease greater than mild, ejection fraction less than 40%, right ventricular dysfunction, and contraindications to transesophageal echocardiography. Each hour post-operatively we measured LV end-diastolic area (LVEDA), LV end-systolic area (LVESA), systemic blood pressure, pulmonary artery pressure, central venous pressure, and cardiac index using the hTEE and our invasive monitoring (arterial line and pulmonary artery catheter).
*To be presented at the January 2013 Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) Annual Meeting.
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When Should You Use the hTEE Probe - Sometimes, Always, Never? ("Never Say Never")
Harold M. Hastings PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (Excerpted, please click here for full article) We report on user experience with "when you should use the hTEE probe" to optimize cardiac performance in several key areas of intensive care, ranging from some of the most complex patients in the ICU - patients with mechanical circulatory support - to significantly less complex patients - patients fast-tracked after routine AVR. Disclaimer - hospital protocols and physician decisions determine patient selection and hTEE usage; we simply report on user experience. When should you use the hTEE probe in patients with mechanical circulatory support? Our users report frequent use in patients with mechanical circulatory support, among the most complex patients in the ICU. Simon Maltais MD PhD and colleagues at Vanderbilt use hTEE widely in their large VAD program, with over 35 patients receiving LVAD device therapy in 2012. In their abstract1 presented at 17th Annual Update on Cardiopulmonary Bypass, March 11-16, 2012, Aspen/Snowmass Village, CO, Dr. Maltais and his team wrote "TEE is the intraoperative standard of care for patients undergoing LVAD implantation. Postoperative assessment with hTEE in this case series provided valuable information in this challenging population to effectively treat conditions that were not fully appreciated with standard hemodynamic monitoring." |
Economics 2013 - The Critical Care Dilemma
by Rich Lanzillotto, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance
(Excerpted, please click here to read the full article) The treatment of critical care patients is very expensive, accounting for one third of hospital costs. This economic dilemma is somewhat hidden from view as disproportional resources are expended on the minority of patients. The "80/20" rule is clearly in force here. These "20 percenters" are complex patients who fall into one or more of the following groups:
- Patients admitted to the units after complex surgical procedures
- Hemodynamically unstable patients
- Patients on mechanical or pharmacologic support
- Patients with an ICU stay of greater than 3 days
These patients are threatening profit margins and the overall health of the enterprise. Literature points to the additive costs resulting from particular complications that arise because these patients are not being treated effectively. Read More |
Join Us at an hTEE Symposium in January
ImaCor Inc is pleased to announce its first set of symposia in the United States at the annual meetings of EAST (the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma) and STS (Society of Thoracic Surgeons). The symposia will be held on the following dates:
- EAST Symposium:
Fri, Jan 18 1:30 PM in Scottsdale, AZ
http://imacorinc.com/east-trauma-symposium.html
eastsymposium@imacorinc.com
- STS Symposium:
Mon, Jan 28 6:00 AM in Los Angeles, CA
hteebreakfast@imacorinc.com
These academic events provide an excellent opportunity to learn how distinguished physicians and professors have used hTEE to avoid unnecessary clinical procedures and reduce ICU LOS while improving the level of patient care.
If you would like additional information on these events, or to register your interest in attending, please contact us at eastsymposium@imacorinc.com or hteebreakfast@imacorinc.com respectively.
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EVO Software Release
ImaCor released an updated Zura EVO v.2.2.1 software in advance of the New Year 2013. This release includes file automation tasks, and enhanced cineloop commenting in the description data. An hTEE tutorial is also available, showing video clips of normal images of the three views for comparative evaluation purposes. This new release also offers a true collapsibility index in the superior vena cava view and sets the default measuring mode to Area.
This updated software package is available to our EVO users for immediate download from the ImaCor website. We welcome your comments on this release v.2.2.1. Please write to us at info@ImaCorInc.com with your feedback.
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Retrospective Study
Miniaturized Hemodynamic Transesophageal Echocardiogram (hTEE) Can Accurately Diagnose Pericardial Tamponade After Open Heart Surgery*
Jenny Yang BS, Nicholas Cavarocchi MD, Hitoshi Hirose MD PhD, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA
(Excerpted, please click here to read full report)
Methods: 
Study period: May 2011 to June 2012
Total number of studies: 75 patients (146 studies)
hTEE for possible tamponade: 18 studies
9 males and 2 females
Average age of 61.4 (36-79) y
Indications: postop unexplained hypotension or questionable diagnosis of tamponade
Surgery:
CABG 4
Dissection 4
Heart transplant 4
Sternectomy 1
MVR 1
*Presented at FACTS-Care CVT Critical Care Annual Conference, Oct 2012.
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2013 - A new year positioning ImaCor for global growth and expanding utility in critical care, specifically with cardiac and trauma patients. We continue to bring value to our customers both in clinical efficacy and the reduction of LOS by stabilizing patients faster. These improvements in hemodynamic management have resulted in better patient outcomes, saving lives and saving money which has been documented with our users both domestically and internationally.
As we look out on the horizon, ImaCor's charter is to invest in education and training for intensivists. We see hTEE becoming a leading technology and clinical application in hemodynamic management that will become the new standard of care. The complex and unstable ICU patient requires a higher degree of care than the currently available indirect methods provide. Direct cardiac visualization that is continuously available improves the management and the outcomes of these complex patients. Simply and clearly, hTEE helps clinicians to identify the root cause of the patient's hemodynamic instability and enables them to track, assess, and manage it visibly over time.
Along with this demand, we see physicians sharing their best practices with each other to aid them in their clinical work. Our symposia, user groups, and this peer-to-peer outreach are ways to communicate hTEE benefits to a large, highly interested audience.
We will offer our first U.S. symposium on January 18th at EAST. We will closely follow that with a second symposium for cardiothoracic surgeons at the Society for Thoracic Surgeons (STS) on January 28th. We hope to see you at one of these events.
We will announce more Education and Development initiatives during the year. I welcome your feedback and invite you to email me at ceo@imacorinc.com to share your hemodynamic management approach. Let us build on this promise and the excitement of improving patient care together.
Our commitment is to a consultative approach to improve your outcomes and your bottom line.
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