Since not everyone will be able to join us in the Windy City, the public can expect big things from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute at the conference. We’re presenting 21 abstracts at the conference, a record number for our team.  

Amazingly, the abstracts that our research is based on came from our own database and our own experiences here at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute. In research, this doesn’t always happen, since not all facilities have the database or tools needed to perform the kind of research that we do.

Follow along on Twitter to see what’s happening at #AHA14. You can also follow #HeartInstitute.

There are lots sessions and presentations that I’m looking forward to attending, besides our own, but one that I’m particularly interested in is one of the major highlighted sessions: the “Late-Breaking Clinical Trials” session. The studies presented in this session have the potential to significantly impact clinical practices and improve heart care for patients across the country.

In addition to conference presentations and posters (there are about 20 to 30 poster sessions), there are numerous committees meeting to discuss and shape heart care guidelines and best-practice recommendations from across the country. I’m honored to be part of one such committee, the AHA Guidelines Committee, which will be identifying in this session how to most most-effectively treat high-blood pressure.

One of my favorite parts of the conference is the opportunity to meet other researchers and clinicians, and talk about their experiences, share research ideas, and brainstorm new questions for future research projects. It’s from these meetings that new ideas come to life and spark thoughts on what experts will be researching next year. We all build on someone else’s shoulders and go from one observation to the next. Every study not only answers questions but also raises new questions; it’s really very exciting.

There are always wonderful, new things to learn at the American Heart Association Scientific Session conferences, and that’s the exciting thing about medicine. The best part is that all of this will help us provide the very best heart care to our patients.

Stay up-to-date on research presented by the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute by following them on Twitter