December 2010 Blog Posts (6)

Bringing telemedicine to Haiti

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…

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Added by John Vitiello on December 29, 2010 at 10:41am — 2 Comments

ConnectMD’s Medical Network Enables Innovative Remote Allocation for Blood Distribution

GCI ConnectMD Increases Safety for Puget Sound Blood Center Patients

DECEMBER 29, 2010, SEATTLE — GCI ConnectMD (ConnectMD) is making a new blood-distribution process possible for the…

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Added by Courtney Hastings on December 29, 2010 at 10:39am — No Comments

Deep Impact

Medical Product Manufacturing News (MPMN) released it's "Top 25 over the Last 25 Years". The list is subject to debate, but serves as solid retrospective of the impact of technology on the delivery of healthcare over the span of a quarter-century ... worth a read!

Added by Clymer/JR on December 16, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

Hospitals are Unsafe - There Are Still Plenty of Preventable Medical Errors

Over the past ten years and since the publication of the Institute of Medicine landmark book “To Err Is Human” there have been many attempts to reduce preventable medical errors which are estimated to take about 100,000 lives per year – perhaps many more. The question is whether all of this effort has had a substantial clinical impact.

The results of a recently published study are therefore concerning. A…

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Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 14, 2010 at 11:54am — No Comments

Two Treatments For Macular Degeneration – At Wildly Divergent Costs

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. More than 1 million Americans have neovascular or “wet” AMD and a slightly lower number have “dry” AMD which often progresses to the more severe “wet” form. Since this is a disease of aging, we can expect many more cases as the population expands in the coming years.

Neovascular AMD appears to be related, at lease in part, to excess production of vascular endothelial growth factor… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 8, 2010 at 2:25pm — No Comments

Replacing the Aortic Valve Without Open Surgery!

Aortic stenosis (a narrowing and hardening of the heart’s aortic valve) is not uncommon among older individuals. It begins without symptoms and progresses for years but, about 50% will die within 2 years once the fitst symptoms develop. The standard approach is to surgically replace the aortic valve which will improve both heart function and survival. Unfortunately, about 30% of symptomatic individuals cannot undergo surgery because of older age, other heart problems or other medical conditions… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 1, 2010 at 10:50am — No Comments