Despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barbara Gill MacArther, RN, vice president of cardiac services at the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, expects significant advancements in cardio-oncology and pharmacology research in the coming months.
Ms. MacArther recently joined Becker's Healthcare cardiology podcast to discuss how cardiac care is evolving, current trends in virtual cardiology and more.
Here is an excerpt from the podcast. Click here to download the full episode.
Question: How do you see heart care evolving over the next 18 months?
Barbara Gill MacArther: Well, I wish I had a crystal ball and sometimes I pretend I do. I think the evolution over the next 18 months will include a better understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on the health of communities, as well as the impact on the healthcare organization.
It's not over. We all know that we are still dealing with not only the virus itself, but the impact on employment and family structure, and factors in the community. We're going to be moving on to new norms, some of which we're sensing now and some of which we will earn over the next 18 months.
I think the other factor over the next 18 months is to follow the rapid advancements in pharmacology and technology, and keeping the focus on patient centric impact related to their comorbidities and social determinants of health. There's so much news about pharmacology, new drugs, cardio-oncology and so forth. But these studies are reminding us that it's not just the mechanism of the drug, it's putting it in that patient's framework to make progress. So I think that's where the evolution will be over the next 18 months.