Saving and Improving Lives in the Information Age

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Scientific Sessions. On behalf of all of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) clinicians, scientists, lay volunteers, and staff, I extend a warm welcome and offer my thanks for your efforts to understand, prevent, and treat cardiovascular diseases. We are inspired by your dedication to saving and improving lives. The burden of these diseases is something we all share, no matter where we live or work. So let us make the most of our opportunities to learn from one another throughout the Scientific Sessions. For these next 4 days, Chicago is home to the latest in cardiovascular and stroke research. Chicago is also home to significant cardiovascular history. Ninety years ago, Chicago resident Dr James B. Herrick joined Dr Paul Dudley White and 4 other pioneering physicians at Chicago’s Drake Hotel to create the AHA.1 They started this lifesaving organization just 4 miles away from where we are sitting right now. Yet, it was worlds away when we consider what we can offer patients today. We now have tools at our disposal that we could barely imagine only a few years ago. New diagnostic and therapeutic options are being discovered at a pace unseen in human history. We have an unprecedented opportunity to harness these advances to save and improve lives, and that is what I would like to talk to you about. But first, I would like to share a quick illustration of just how much our tools have changed. This 28-pound box is the actual ECG machine Paul Dudley White used in his office decades ago.2 It was considered state of the art back then. With the patient lying supine and connected to the device, a paper recording of the ECG could be obtained, a single lead at a time. Now, …