Featured Blog Posts – December 2009 Archive (26)

A 2-for-1 Giving Opportunity from INSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters)

Colleagues,

Please see message I am forwarding to you below from MedTech-IQ member, Eric Rasmussen, CEO, InSTEDD. InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters) is a non-profit created three years ago to fight global health threats and natural disasters in remote and dangerous places founded by Dr. Larry Brilliant, former director of Google's philanthropic arm ... Google.org.

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| December… Continue

Added by CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight on December 31, 2009 at 7:30am — No Comments

Healthcare Reform Misconception - Costs are rising because of the avarice and greed or just unregulated “bad guys

Drug and technology companies, doctors, hospitals, malpractice lawyers and third-party payers/insurers deserve some approbation and bear some responsibility at the margin, but these are not the major reasons why costs are rising. But it seems that politicians, the media and so many others seem to believe what’s convenient rather than what is accurate.

The real culprits are: 1) the poor coordination of care of those with chronic illness resulting in excess visits to specialists,… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 29, 2009 at 11:05am — No Comments

Welcome to CDC Chatter.net! A Blog to Discuss Issues at CDC

Welcome to CDC Chatter.net!

ABOUT CDCChatter.net

Welcome to CDCChatter.net, an unofficial blog for employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), external partners and others who are interested in CDC. This blog was established for CDC employees and others to post information, express opinions,… Continue

Added by Eric K. Noji, M.D. on December 26, 2009 at 7:00pm — No Comments

Misconception - Universal coverage for all Americans will reduce costs

Unfortunately that is not the case; indeed it will create substantial added expenditures. Today we spend about $7500 per capita for medical care each year. That is built into our insurance whether it is commercial or Medicare along with co-pays and deductibles. In my view it is unfortunate that Congress has not done much to address the high and rising costs of medical care in the reform bills.

America is the only country in the developed world that does not have some system to ensure… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 23, 2009 at 11:59am — No Comments

International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS) Accepted for Indexing in Medline & Index Medicus.

Colleagues,

Please see message below from organizers of CARS...Computer Assisted Radiology & Surgery 2010...

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Dear colleague,

We are pleased to announce that the International Journal of Computer

Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS) has been accepted for indexing in

Medline and Index Medicus. This news should encourage potential… Continue

Added by CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight on December 23, 2009 at 5:30am — No Comments

Misconception – Healthcare reform will fundamentally improve how we receive care going forward.

This is also not at all likely except for those who do not now have medical care insurance. For the rest of us, medical care delivery will change but it will change not because of reform but because of some fundamental societal and demographic reasons along with a marked change in the types, severity and chronicity of illnesses that is occurring right now. The combination of an aging population and our non-healthy lifestyles (obesity, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, stress and smoking) are… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 21, 2009 at 2:12pm — No Comments

'Deep Impact'

FierceHealth publishes their rendition of the 5 stories with the greatest impact on Healthcare IT over the last decade. Agree or not with the editors' prioritization, none can characterize any of their 5 issues as trivia or fluff. It all makes for an interesting retrospective, with implications for the decade ahead.

Added by Clymer/JR on December 21, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Facts Are Stubborn Things

There is no more hotly contested issue now than "healthcare reform". Like apple pie, everybody rallies around the concept, but there is striking division over what constitutes "healthy" reform. Beyond the arguments over the merits of the current bill (whatever that happens to be today), is the green eye-shade claim of deficit neutrality, something most people (for good reason) simply are not buying; they smell what is under the rug. Many peer right through the CBO flim-flam… Continue

Added by Clymer/JR on December 16, 2009 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Misconception – The remarkable medical scientific advances are rapidly made available to the care delivery system.

We should so hope but often that it is just not the case.

Laparoscopic surgery took medicine by storm 20 years ago but some new technologies of great value are slow to be adopted, such as simulation for teaching procedures rather than learning by practicing on the patient. Sometimes it is because the old way is “the way we have always done it” and sometimes it is because those holding the purse strings just do not appreciate the underlying value. Laparoscopic surgery got patients out… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 16, 2009 at 5:20pm — No Comments

Poorly Kept Secret

Despite many deals with Cell carriers, most recently Verizon and its successful Motorola Droid™, all indicators point to a Google branded cell phone, monicker 'Nexus One', running the most recent release of Android™ (v2.1). You can read the latest posting about the "hardware that isn't". Although there have been many pretenders to Apple's… Continue

Added by Clymer/JR on December 16, 2009 at 5:00pm — No Comments

UNICEF in emergencies: ‘Bee’ system prototypes represent the future of connectivity in emergencies

‘Bee’ system prototypes represent the future of connectivity in emergencies

NEW YORK, USA, 20 August 2008 – UNICEF has successfully tested the first two prototypes of the ‘Bee’, a mobile communication system developed by the Division of…

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Added by Eric K. Noji, M.D. on December 14, 2009 at 2:11pm — No Comments

HealthSaaS.net Signs Reseller and Integration Agreement with BioSign

HealthSaaS.net Signs Reseller and Integration Agreement with BioSign

HealthSaaS.net and BioSign Technologies Inc. (CNSX:BIO) today announced they have entered into

an alliance agreement that enables HealthSaaS.net to resell BioSign products and integrate patient

driven data into the HealthSaaS.net Personal Health Record (PHR) treatment management service.

Beaverton, OR, December 11, 2009 --(PR.com)-- BioSign and HealthSaaS.net will integrate their

platforms for… Continue

Added by frankille on December 14, 2009 at 12:24pm — No Comments

FCW Technology Review: "Droid Does it Better"

GCN LAB REVIEW

Droid does it better

By John Breeden II…

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Added by Eric K. Noji, M.D. on December 14, 2009 at 12:14pm — No Comments

Video Conference with Becton Dickinson – The Future of Medicine

I was recently invited to present my thoughts on the Future of Medicine, based on my book of the same name, to the worldwide medical affairs group at Becton Dickinson, the giant medical device and diagnostics company headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Their senior vice president for medical affairs, Dr David Durack, requested that I review the basic megatrends developing as a result of the scientific advances from genomics, stem cells transplantation, vaccines, pharmaceuticals,… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 14, 2009 at 9:36am — 1 Comment

Misconception - “Health care reform” will improve the delivery of care and offer us better care opportunities.

In fact, healthcare reform is not about healthcare; it is mostly about paying for medical care for the uninsured and only somewhat about the rising costs of medical care. I use the term medical care here to emphasize that today American “healthcare” is all about treating disease and injury and very little about promoting wellness and preventing illness. The reforms being proposed are about addressing the financing of medical care but not the quality, the safety or the way that healthcare will… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 12, 2009 at 3:41pm — 2 Comments

Invite from MedTech-IQ member, Christine Stineman ... online chat with Honorary Co-Chair Michael K. Powell

Colleagues,

Please see invite from MedTech-IQ member, Christine Stineman, to an online chat with Michael K. Powell ... former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)...

Join us for an online chat with Honorary Co-Chair Michael K. Powell

Please join Broadband for America this Friday, December 11th… Continue

Added by CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight on December 9, 2009 at 7:31pm — No Comments

Common Misconceptions About Healthcare Reform

American medicine must change - and the change will be both substantial and difficult to achieve but change is critical if we are to have a well functioning healthcare system that affords all of us safe, quality care at a reasonable cost in a customer-focused manner. Today there are many misconceptions about healthcare reform - misconceptions about who will have access, how much it will cost, who will pay the bills, whether it will benefit those who currently have insurance, whether there will… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 9, 2009 at 10:01am — 3 Comments

Chrome (Mac) At Last

For those Macintosh users waiting for Google Chrome (Mac), your wait is over. You can download today. I've tried it, but it's too early to offer an opinion. I'm sure we'll be seeing reviews from the 'Mac Press' in the next few days.

Added by Clymer/JR on December 8, 2009 at 2:00pm — 1 Comment

NY Times: Google Adds Live Results From Twitter to Searches

Google Adds Live Results From Twitter to Searches

BRAD STONE

Google addressed the press at an event at its headquarters on Monday, talking about its advances in mobile, real-time and social search. It’s unveiling several new features that could influence how people search the Web. One big change, live results from Twitter and other sites mixed in with the standard Web search results, is rolling out over the next… Continue

Added by Eric K. Noji, M.D. on December 7, 2009 at 3:54pm — No Comments

Mammograms as a Stalking Horse for Issues in Healthcare Reform

As we watch the reform movement in Washington, we see and hear so many misconceptions. A current one relates to mammography. A few weeks ago guidelines were published in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine stating, in effect, that women between ages 50 and 75 with no history of breast cancer in their family and normal mammograms to date could probably switch from annual to biannual exams. And women between ages 40 and 50 probably did not need to get mammograms as had been previously… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 7, 2009 at 9:44am — 2 Comments