Society Embraces New Opportunities in Coming Year

May 16, 2009

Heart Rhythm Professionals:

As we wrap up Heart Rhythm 2009, we must congratulate Dr. Doug Packer for developing a wonderful meeting filled with creative ideas such as Hyde Park Corner sessions, Poster Town featuring basic science and the Great Debates. In addition, Dr. J. Craig Venter’s keynote address truly exemplified this year’s theme of science, discovery and innovation.

We have welcomed more than 13,000 attendees to Boston, including international participants from more than 70 countries and inducted another 51 Fellows of the Heart Rhythm Society.

The upcoming year is sure to be an exciting one. We have a number of factors coming together at once and I am fortunate to follow Dr. Mark Estes as president, who has left the Heart Rhythm Society in a terrific position to address today’s unique challenges and opportunities.

The Society has just completed a strategic planning process that sets the road map for the next three to five years. One of the areas we plan to emphasize is research and providing support to young investigators. Task forces dedicated to patients and caregivers, quality and outcomes, research, and a work force study presented their initial recommendations to the Society Board of Trustees this week and we will begin the process of prioritizing activities for the coming year.

This is a challenging time in terms of healthcare, and there is an exciting and appropriate emphasis on quality of care and responsible stewardship of the resources that we are afforded. The nation will be looking to the Heart Rhythm Society to take the lead with regard to arrhythmias as we work with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the White House.

Some version of universal health coverage will likely become a reality soon, and we should welcome this. At the same time, we must advocate for the needs of patients with arrhythmias, conduction disorders and risk of sudden death. We have a good start on this process, with the recent Think Tank at FDA, which combined that organization with ACC, NCDR, CMS and NHLBI among others. Here at Heart Rhythm 2009, we held a town hall meeting that included many of these organizations to examine proposed reforms under the Obama administration and the new Congress as well as the private practice, academic and industry perspectives on those reform initiatives.

A great strength of our organization is that we are volunteer and member-driven. In recent years this important tradition has been coupled with world-class professional staff support. As we go forward, I am calling for a renewed commitment from our volunteers — physicians, scientists and allied professionals alike — to help the board of trustees and I address the challenges of the day.

We have a large representation of allied professionals who are on the front lines and play an important role in delivering evidence-based quality care. We owe them a broad array of educational opportunities in addition to the Scientific Sessions.

Likewise, I am calling on the talents of the physician and scientist members to lend their expertise in many areas including health policy, definitions of appropriate quality care, interaction with government bodies, developing new educational opportunities, and identifying the best way to leverage the investment we are going to make in arrhythmia research.

Fundamentally, I see the current challenges, which are real, as providing us an outstanding opportunity to focus on what is most important for our patients, our profession and the public good. We will set priorities and concentrate on the most important aspects of our mission as the Heart Rhythm Society: to improve the care of patients by promoting research, education and optimal health care policies and standards.

Sincerely,

Richard L. Page, MD, FHRS
2009-2010 Heart Rhythm Society President