Heart Teams for Cardiac Imaging: The Right Test at the Right Time for the Right Patient

Modern cardiology is both a complex business and a team sport. Treatment options have expanded and now extend to patients whose age and degree of sickness might have excluded them in the past. Correct diagnosis and treatment can be challenging, and imaging is central to understanding cardiac pathology and to guiding optimal treatment choices. It is almost impossible for a single physician to have full mastery of all the imaging tools available for diagnosis. Instead, it is incumbent upon hospitals to establish imaging teams which have both overlapping and unique expertise. These may be drawn from the ranks of cardiology, radiology, or nuclear medicine—skill set is of more importance than background specialty. Heart imaging teams, working together in unison, represent an ideal model to facilitate the right test at the right time for the right patient.