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Duke Heart Pulse — October 5, 2025

By Tracey Koepke in Uncategorized on October 5, 2025

Highlights of the week:

To Those Observing Recent Holidays

We hope all who observed Yom Kippur this past week had a meaningful and peaceful fast. A belated happy new year to all who celebrated Rosh Hashana Sept. 22-24. May this season foster renewal, peace and rejuvenation within you and your family.

Duke Health, Trase Systems Partner to Develop AI Health Care Tools

Duke Health and Trase Systems have entered a strategic partnership to create advanced AI agents aimed at reshaping health care delivery.

Trase Systems is a developer of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, a type of AI that can that make choices and act on its own to reach goals. Duke Health and Trase Systems plan to build a comprehensive AI-powered ecosystem that integrates automation ensuring data is brought to action for clinical care to improve outcomes and reduce cost.

The aim of the agentic AI technology is to streamline administrative assignments and optimize the allocation of resources, while also enhancing clinical functions such as patient scheduling requests, care coordination, and access to clinical studies.

Duke Heart staff will co-develop and test agentic AI products with Trase Systems aimed at enhancing clinician workflows, elevating the patient care experience, and improving health outcomes. The first phase of development will begin at the Duke Heart Center, which treats more than 65,000 people with heart disease every year.

“At Duke Health and Duke Heart, we are committed to advancing health care through innovation and research,” said Manesh R. Patel, MD, Chief of the Division of Cardiology at the Duke University School of Medicine.

“AI has the potential to help our doctors, nurses, and researchers maximize the use of information to personalize cardiovascular care for our patients,” said Patel. “We strive to develop proven and trusted tools that will improve health outcomes and create a better experience for patients and care teams alike.”

Clinical leaders will be working to see whether integrating AI into everyday workflows will allow care teams to better understand each patient’s unique health history, lifestyle, and biology and lead to more personalized care.

In addition to more personalized care, the AI-powered ecosystem aims to reduce administrative burden. In a recent survey by the American Medical Association, 75% of physicians said AI could make their work more efficient, and more than half believed AI could help with stress and burnout.

“AI holds enormous potential to transform health care—whether by automating time-intensive administrative tasks, improving patient care and outcomes, or streamlining hospital workflows—yet industry-wide adoption has been slow,” said Grant Verstandig, CEO of Red Cell Partners (incubator of Trase systems), and co-founder and CEO of Trase Systems. “By collaborating directly with the doctors, nurses, and administrators of Duke Health, we’ll be rapidly developing the agents they want and that deliver the highest value. We are excited to be pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve so we can get that much closer to realizing its transformative impact on health care.”

ICYMI: SOM Leadership Town Hall Recording

Dean Klotman hosted a School of Medicine Town Hall: Financial and Operational Strategy Updates on Tuesday, Sept. 30. If you were unable to join us you can view the recording right here.

More from HFSA

We received more great photos from Heart Failure Society of America attendees this week, enjoy!

Above, left, Haya Aziz, MD, former AHFTC fellow, now AHFTC cardiologist at McGill University, presented a poster on a project she worked on with Karen Flores Rosario, MD. They are joined by Benjamin Trichon, MD, in the next photo, above right.

Above left, Jacob Schroder presenting to HFSA attendees; above center and right, Duke team members connecting! Photos courtesy of Stephanie Barnes and Karen Flores Rosario.

Campaign Launching this Week

As mentioned last month, Duke Health will launch an Access Campaign this week with three commercial spots – two of them dedicated to orthopedic and cardiovascular care. You can see the spots here: General Access; Heart, and Ortho.

AHA.25 Duke Annual Reception

The annual Duke reception at the upcoming American Heart Association Annual Scientific Sessions will be held on Nov. 8. (Please see email from DCRI for your official invitation.)

The upcoming Sessions will be held Nov. 7-10, 2025, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. This year’s theme is The Future of Cardiovascular Science Starts Here.

We look forward to seeing you!

Reminder: Please let Tracey Koepke know if you are making a presentation at Sessions so that she can plan to include your findings in Pulse. Thank you!

DUHS Updates:

Agreement reached with Aetna

On Friday, Duke Health and Aetna®, a CVS Health company, announced a new multi-year agreement that provides Aetna Commercial and Medicare Advantage members continued in-network access to high-quality, affordable care at Duke Health. This agreement includes all Duke Health locations and providers and reflects a shared commitment to putting patients and members first.

“Throughout this negotiation, we have remained committed to our nonprofit mission of serving the best interests of our patients and community,” said Thomas A. Owens, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Duke University Health System. “We came to the table together to reach an agreement that covers the cost of care. Our agreement with Aetna prioritizes efficiency, promotes high-quality care, and helps drive down health care costs.”

“Duke Health is a valued partner in delivering high-quality, convenient care to Aetna members in North Carolina,” said Amelia Lee, Aetna Vice President of Network, Southeast Region. “We look forward to continuing to work together to meet the needs of our shared members and patients.”

With this new agreement, both organizations look forward to continuing their partnership to provide high-quality health care while exploring new, innovative opportunities that focus on population health, value-based care, and other areas to benefit the health of members and patients in North Carolina.

“We came together to do what is best for patients and worked together to make this positive outcome possible,” said Owens. “Patients and families will continue to have access to the Duke Health doctors and care teams they know and trust.”

Patients who may have rescheduled or canceled any appointments are encouraged to call their provider’s office to resume care.

Pencina Heading to UnitedHealthcare

Dean Mary Klotman announced this week that Michael J. Pencina, PhD, chief data scientist for Duke Health and vice dean for data science, director of Duke AI Health, and professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at the Duke University School of Medicine, will be leaving Duke to take a position with UnitedHealthcare as their chief AI scientist.

Pencina joined the Duke faculty in 2013. He co-founded and co-chaired Duke Health’s Algorithm-Based Clinical Decision Support (ABCDS) Oversight Committee and served as co-director of Duke’s Collaborative to Advance Clinical Health Equity (CACHE). He spearheaded Duke’s role as a founding partner of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), whose mission is to increase trustworthiness of AI by developing guidelines to drive high-quality health care through the adoption of credible, fair, and transparent health AI systems.

We wish him all the best in his new role – he will be missed here at Duke!

Upcoming Events & Opportunities

September 15-October 15: Hispanic Heritage Month

October 6-24: Open Enrollment period for 2026 medical benefits

October 9: Flu vaccination season launch

MMCVI Grand Rounds

Multi-Modality Cardiovascular Imaging Grand Rounds: A multi-imaging approach to cardiovascular disease cases. Thursdays, Noon to 1 p.m., via Zoom.

Oct. 9: RV Guidelines with Fawaz Alenezi

Oct. 16: Quality in the Echo Lab with Ashlee Davis

Oct. 23 Topic TBD with Tess Allan

Oct. 30: Cardiovascular Imaging in Pregnancy with Nish Shivakumar

CME Activities:

17th Annual NC RTP Pulmonary Hypertension Symposium — October 31

This symposium will explore optimal diagnostic strategies for treating patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, treatment selection, and timely referrals to specialized PH centers. Clinically challenging presentations, including CTD-PAH, CPPC PH, CTEPH, PH associated with ILD, COPD, portopulmonary hypertension, and PH in end-stage renal disease, will be addressed — with a focus on frontline providers — through interactive lectures and robust case-based discussions. Durham Convention Center. Register here.

Duke Cardiovascular MR Practicum & Board Review – December 8-12

The Fall 2025 course will be held December 8-12 in the Penn Pavilion at Duke University. For more information, contact Michele Parker. The full course brochure and registration link are available here.

Community Events:

2025 Triangle Heart Walk – October 11 at Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek, 3801 Rock Quarry Rd, Raleigh, NC 27610. Festivities begin at 7:30 a.m.; Duke Health Team Photo will be at 8:15! The welcome program will begin at 8:45 a.m. with the Walk immediately following. The event venue will be open through 11 a.m.

Dr. Thomas Bashore Collection Opening – October 29

The collection opening celebration is scheduled for October 29 at 4:30 p.m. in the Holsti Anderson Family Assembly Room, Room 153, Rubenstein Library, Duke University, West Campus.

Have news to share?

If you have news to share with the Pulse readership, please contact Tracey Koepke, director of communications for Duke Heart & Vascular at tracey.koepke@duke.edu. We would love to hear about your latest accomplishments, professional news, cool happenings, and any events or opportunities that may be of interest to our team. Please call me with any questions: 919-681-2868. Feedback on Pulse is welcome and encouraged. Submissions by Noon on Wednesdays will be considered for weekend inclusion.

Duke Heart in the News:

September 28 — Stephen Greene

HCP Live/Don’t Miss a Beat podcast

Don’t Miss a Beat: Debating Oral Diuretic Intensification as an Endpoint in Heart Failure Trials

September 28 — Stephen Greene

HCP Live

Understanding Residual Risk and Hyperkalemia in Heart Failure, With Steve Greene, MD

September 29 — Neha Pagidipati

STAT News

Warning: Serious cardiovascular events don’t come out of the blue

September 29 — Sreekanth Vemulapalli

The Cardiology Advisor