Featured Blog Posts (364)

Colleagues,

Do you need a good incentive to exercise? Check out this set of pictures. They may well surprise you.

Tis is not a typical topic for MedTechIQ but it is relevant to all of us. I just turned 70 so I am going to the gym after I post this.

We all know we should exercise. It feels good during and we feel even better after. We know it burns calories and that our bodies were meant to be used. But all too many of us are sedentary; it just the result of modern life.…

Colleagues,

Without a doubt, MedTech-IQ member, Dr Bertalan Mesko (Berci for short) is one of our leading lights in charting the course of social media and medicine, internationally.  He is now making available his online curriculum for training in social media, medicine and healthcare - for free ... Bravo!

Thank you Berci! 

Please see his announcement and links to the course below, and…

For a parent of a child with cystic fibrosis, a new drug that could eradicate symptoms could be a God send. The same could be said of a parent of child with Angelman’s syndrome. For a patient with lung cancer, a drug that is more than marginally effective would be wonderful. And for a person with early Alzheimer’s or their loved ones, a drug that might actually reverse the disease would be incredible.

New drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regularly.…

Colleagues,

For your information, and in the continuing quest to capture the 3C's of Content, Community and Collaboration, please find the following on the Open Source Electronic Health Record effort to which I have devoted substantial effort to in recent months.

ENJOY!

Conrad "CC" Clyburn…

Some 80% of healthcare costs go to just a few very serious complex chronic diseases including the likes of diabetes and heart failure. But these are all largely preventable with lifestyle adjustments. Unfortunately, we Americans are an over fed (on non-nutritious diets), under exercised, chronically stressed population with 20% of us still smoking. One third of us are frankly obese and another one third are overweight. 

Health care costs could plummet if we could only become a health…

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Advanced Study Institute

Invisible Wounds

New Tools to Enhance Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Diagnosis and Treatment

June 18 – 28, 2012 | Ankara, Turkey

http://www.interactivemediainstitute.com/IW2012

The Interactive Media Institute and the Virtual Reality Medical Institute…

A decade ago there was much hope and hype for gene therapy. Then came the death of Jesse Gelsinger , an 18 year old, as a result of uncontrolled infection from the viral vector used to insert the gene change. That led to a near total stop of gene therapy clinical trials and the development of multiple new regulations, especially multiple levels of extensive reviews. 

Now some new developments are coming to fruition and there is some legitimate reason for enthusiasm that gene therapy…

Colleagues,

Consistently, one of the most interesting medical technology meetings of the year - MMVR, Medicine Meets Virtual Reality - this year returning to its historic home in beautiful Newport Beach, California. 

I can attest from personal experience, a wonderful venue...

ENJOY!

CC

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The Next Step In The Creation Of The Open Source System

Arlington, Virginia – OSEHRA, the Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent, a notfor-

profit foundation facilitating EHR (Electronic Health Record) improvements through open

source development, announced today the launch of its Code Repository and Software Quality

Certification Process. The establishment of the repository and certification process is a

significant step in…

I really don’t want to brag too much or seem too over the top we have changed the world of identity authentication.  Really.  We did.

How? By launching ExpectID Enterprise, a brand new knowledge based authentication (KBA) product that solves many of the problems associated with those ridiculously frustrating and hard to remember shared secret questions we all know…

With the HITECH Act the healthcare industry is rapidly expanding into the digital age.  The use cases for technology in healthcare are growing – everything from making medical records available electronically, social networks for health and medical professionals being created, doctors writing prescriptions online, to consumers scheduling hospital visits or making an insurance claim online.  With this growth comes a…

Well, probably not a surprise at all. The seeds of coronary artery disease (CAD) are laid down early and over long periods. But given our current pandemic of obesity beginning in childhood, should we worry about an epidemic of chronic disease like diabetes and CAD in the years to come? The clear answer is a resounding “Yes.”

There has been a long term study of military men in the Israeli Defense Force. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine, April 7, 2011 reports…

It is currently popular for government officials to single out the insurance companies for the rising cost of healthcare. Not that the insurers are without fault but the real reasons for cost increases are rarely addressed and therefore not appreciated. We are a country with an aging population (“old parts wear out”) and of many adverse behaviors (e.g., overweight, sedentary lifestyle, stress and 20% still smoke.) Combined, these are driving a rapid increase in chronic diseases such as…

When Clarissa was 13 she entered Johns Hopkins Hospital to be treated for relapsed acute leukemia knowing full well that she had only a 40% chance of survival. Today she is 16 and in excellent health. But it took 2 ½ years of incredibly rigorous treatments to get there. Equally importantly it meant riding an emotional roller coaster for her and her parents. 

Clarissa had been treated for leukemia when she was 2 and had been fine for a decade when the relapse occurred. She found there…

During the healthcare reform debate there was the unfortunate reference to “death panels.” No such thing was ever in the proposals but it meant that an important part of medical care was set aside as too “toxic” to discuss. But end of life counseling is very important. Indeed it is good to have realistic discussions at the beginning of a serious illness; indeed it is only fair to the patient and the patient’s family.

            Palliative care (I don’t like the term; it seems to…

GCI ConnectMD (ConnectMD), the premier provider of telehealth connectivity and services throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, has partnered with Swedish Medical Center (Swedish) on The Swedish Cancer Institute's Mobile Mammography Program. The program was created to deliver potentially life-saving technology to communities that would otherwise have little to no access to advanced breast-cancer screening. This is the latest example of ConnectMD’s…

Diabetes mellitus is the most common cause of kidney failure that progresses to end stage renal disease (ESRD,) meaning that the person requires dialysis or kidney transplant. ESRD is chronic and life long, is complicated to treat, has a major negative effect on quality of life and the costs are high.

So it was good news when the Centers of Disease Control reported that the incidence of ESRD among diabetics had declined by…

Lung cancer is the most common cancer other than skin cancer. The survival rate is still dismal so early diagnosis presumably could make an impact. Chest x-rays just do not have the sensitivity to find early lung cancer. Computed tomography (CT Scans) can detect very small lesions in the lung. Another study has now been completed and it was able to find many early cancers.…

I just returned from a cholera mission to Haiti - my first.

I can't believe how little they have there. In response, I am bringing the first telemedicine terminal to the largest hospital in North Haiti. The Justinian Hospital in Cap Haitien.

Details on the project are at the following website: www.porschestoplowshares.org.

I'm relativly new to all this so your comments and suggestions are most…