2008-07-22 23:50:07 -

www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/pr/experts/ - ExpertSource:

TOPIC: Researchers found that 10 percent of what appeared to be healthy middle-aged people had suffered a silent stroke, according to an article by United Press International. Researchers, who reviewed routine MRIs of the 2,000 study participants, also found people with atrial fibrillation, a common form of heart arrhythmia, were twice as

likely to experience a silent stroke. The study appears in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

EXPERTS: ExpertSource can offer several highly qualified experts to comment on this story:

Dr. Mason Weiss, of the Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, Calif., received both his undergraduate and medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He then completed an internship at The Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal as well as medical residencies at both St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and Toronto General Hospital. Dr. Weiss then completed a cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He has been an active member in medical societies such as American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions, American College of Chest Physicians and American College of Angiology, as well as the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. He holds board certifications from the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Internal Medicine: Cardiovascular Diseases and the American Board of Internal Medicine: Interventional Cardiology. -0- PR Contact: Trace Longo 949-364-2821 trace.longo@sbcglobal.net

Richard Bankowitz, MD, MBA, FACP, vice president and medical director for healthcare informatics at Premier, Inc., has devoted his career to improving healthcare quality at the national level by promoting rigorous, data-driven approaches to quality. Bankowitz developed interests in computers and programming during high school and college. During these years, he gained experience programming in the BASIC computer language. His interest in computers and programming were set aside prior to starting medical school. Bankowitz earned his MD degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1983. Later that year, he began an internal medicine residency program at Pitt. At the time, Gerald Levy, MD, was chair of the department of medicine, and Michael Karpf, MD, was division chief of general internal medicine. -0- PR Contact: Alven Weil 704-733-5797 alven_weil@premierinc.com www.premierinc.com/about/news

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