Joseph Kim, MD, MPH (Free subscription) | 07/03/2009
Have you heard of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP)? Let me share a snippet from their "about us" section of their website: "The mission of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel is to serve as a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors for the purpose of achieving a widely accepted and useful set of standards specifically...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
We rarely delve into politics. But if we must, Independence Day is probably a good occasion. So over coffee and a brioche, we were reading Health Care Stories for America @ BarackObama.com. There we noticed an interesting pattern: scolding of health insurance companies is on at full steam, but no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: Medicare. And that's where the real health care dollars...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
W. L. Gore & Associates just received FDA's OK to market an updated version of the firm's GORE VIABAHN® Endoprosthesis indicated for "improving blood flow in patients with symptomatic peripheral arterial disease in superficial femoral artery lesions with reference diameters ranging from 4.0 - 7.5 mm [and] in iliac artery lesions with reference vessel diameters from 4.0 – 12 mm"...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
Elderly folks tend to prefer to live in their own homes as the years pass, but the potential for accidents to happen leads many to seek nursing homes or to live with family. Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet Healthcare is reporting on technology from WellAWARE Systems (Charlottesville, Virginia) that monitors people in their homes with sensors in beds, bath tubs, and generally throughout the living space....
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute have devised a new method to watch for the presence of the HER2 protein, a commonly expressed marker of breast cancer. As you can imagine, the implications for this technology could be immense, from doing research on pathophysiology of breast CA to developing protocols for treatment. From the statement issued by the National Cancer Institute: ... the research...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
As medical devices become smaller and more complex because of the ever increasing demand for greater precision in clinical and research applications, the need for smart materials is also on the rise. Many metal alloys are able to "remember" a specific shape they were in before transformation, the best example being self expanding coronary stents. Although memory retaining alloys are already...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
Researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School have developed a miniature microfluidic device that is capable of capturing endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) from the bloodstream, in a sample of only 200 microliters of blood. Because endothelial progenitor cells move towards injuries within blood vessels, detecting their presence can lead to a diagnostic system for various vascular...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
A collaborative group of German and American researchers has identified the important biochemical processes involved in the regeneration of limbs of salamanders. Nearly unique in their great ability to replace lost appendages, salamanders were thought to possess pluripotent stem cells with greater abilities to differentiate than those of mammals. Turns out that in salamanders cells located at the location...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
Nephros, Inc., out of River Edge, New Jersey, received FDA approval for the firm's Dual Stage Ultrafilter system. The device is designed to provide redundant filtration for purifying of dialysate fluid and bicarbonate solution. From the product page: The Nephros DSU has a 0.005 micron filter pore size designed to remove a broad spectrum of bacteria, viral agents and biological toxins. These toxins...
EMR - Free Medical Billing Software (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has responded to the Office of the National Coordinator’s recently released Meaningful Use matrix [pdf]–and responded with a vengeance. The bottom line: “CCHIT recommends that meaningful use measures be either simplified for 2011, or postponed until 2013.” Its recommendation was formed by comparing the...
Joseph Kim, MD, MPH (Free subscription) | 07/02/2009
Is your electronic health record (EHR) system certified by the CCHIT ? The CCHIT (Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology) now offers three different certification approaches to replace the current single one. According to Mark Leavitt, M.D., Ph.D., Commission chair, “The rate of EHR adoption must now be tripled to meet the ambitious ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/01/2009
An English gentleman, possibly skeptical of the offerings provided by the National Health Service (NHS), decided to perform his own circumcision at home. Apparently not aided by anything other than some ethanol, the patient/physician brought a pair of nail clippers to the surgical theatre/kitchen sink. Inevitably something went terribly wrong and medics had to be brought out. The Telegraph quotes one...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/01/2009
Yanko Design blog is featuring the work of Elijah Stillson who offers a new idea for a respirator. Although one would be the most attractive person in a crowd of evacuees, lets hope the seals around the face can stay tight with this design. Link: Respirator Mask Design by Elijah Stillson (hat tip: Gizmodo)...
Medgadget (Free subscription) | 07/01/2009
Brainsway Ltd. out of Jerusalem, Israel, a company we've been covering over the last few years, has received local approval to conduct clinical trials of its deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as an aid in quitting smoking. The drastic approach is to be tested on about 100 lung cancer patients that have not been able to quit using other methods. More from Globes Online... Flashbacks: Magnetic...
Health News (Free subscription) | 07/01/2009
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer On balance, it would appear that members of the open-source healthcare software community are satisfied with the proposed changes in the way electronic health records systems will be tested and certified by the federally supported Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology. Earlier this month, CCHIT ...
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