What Has A.I. In Medicine Ever Done For Us? At Least 45 Things!
Remember Monty Python’s
brilliant Life of Brian movie scene where the Palestinian insurgent commando,
planning the abduction of Pilate’s wife in return for all the horrors they had
to endure from the Roman Empire, asks the rhetorical question: what have the
Romans ever done for us? With the hype and overmarketing, not to speak about
the fears around A.I, we asked the same question. What has A.I. in medicine
ever done for us? Well, we found at least 45 things.
I have 45 responses to
the pressing question on everyone’s mind who is interested in healthcare but
tired of the hype or the doomsday
scenarios around A.I.: ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 28, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Future of Medicine administration AI cancer diagnostics digital health digital health technology Healthcare Innovation medical medical imaging Radiology treatment Source Type: blogs
FDA Clears Software to Spot Collapsed Lung in Chest X-rays
Zebra Medical Vision, an Israeli firm, landed FDA clearance for the HealthPNX automated chest X-ray analysis software that can independently spot signs of pneumothorax (PNX), colloquially known as collapsed lung. The software can help radiologists quickly and confidently identify the cause of a patient’s symptoms, allowing for emergency treatment to begin ASAP.
Due to a gas buildup within the pleural space, there’s a slight contrast gradient that appears on chest X-rays. This is hard to spot and requires a trained, keen eye. The HealthPNX system processes the digital X-ray image immediately after exposure and ...
Source: Medgadget - May 20, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Emergency Medicine Informatics Military Medicine Radiology Thoracic Surgery Source Type: blogs
LVH with expected repolarization abnormalities, or acute OMI?
A patient with DM presented with acute chest pain.Here was his ED ECG:There isLVH in limb leads, with a 17 mm R-wave in aVL, and deep S-wave in inferior leads.With this much voltage, one expects some repolarization abnormalities.Indeed, there is a bit of ST depression in aVL (discordant to the tall R-wave) that does not appear to be out of proportion.There is inferior ST Elevation, but the S-waves are also of high voltage.Is this an inferior STEMI? Or is the LVH with expected repolarization abnormalities? There is also some ST depression in V2. Possible posterior involvement?CommentTo me, the inferior ST E...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - May 18, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
One Physician ’s Frustrations of Practicing Amidst the CHIPHIT Complex and Implications for the Future of the U.S. Healthcare System
By HAYWARD ZWERLING, MD
The high cost, low quality and systemic inequities of the U.S. healthcare system have been the impetus for its redesign. Our healthcare system is now controlled by Consolidated Healthcare institutions, Insurance companies, Pharmaceutical companies and Health Information Technology companies (CHIPHIT complex). The CHIPHIT complex, along with the Federal Government, will create and control our future healthcare system. Ominously missing from this list are independent healthcare policy experts, independent healthcare providers and members of the general public.
Historical precedents have demonst...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 8, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Hayward Zwerling health inequities US Healthcare Source Type: blogs
Bedside Ultrasound Has Potential to be the New Gold Standard for Pneumothorax
Bedside ultrasound can be useful for identifying lung structures and assisting with chest tube placement. It can also be used to identify a pneumothorax and confirm chest tube placement post-procedure. Practice looking for signs, and make sure you can identify them in normal pediatric and adult patients. You may still need additional imaging such as chest x-ray and CT to confirm the diagnosis, but US yields immediate and accurate results.Check first for lung sliding, a simple yet convincing finding on US confirming that the lung is inflated. A thin, white line will be seen, which highlights the lung's pleural lining. It...
Source: The Procedural Pause - May 1, 2019 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Race-Based Medicine Can Blind Doctors from Social Injustice
By PHUOC LE MD
Fifteen years ago, as a medical student, I learned a
terrifying lesson about blindly using race-based medicine. I was taking care of
Mr. Smith, a thin man in his late 60s, who entered the hospital with severe
back pain and a fever. As the student on the hospital team, I spent over an
hour interviewing him, asking relevant questions about his medical and social history,
the medications he took, and the details of his symptoms. I learned Mr. Smith
was a veteran who ran into tough times that left him chronically homeless,
uninsured, and suffering from hypertension and diabetes. I performed a complete
physica...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 26, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health disparities Medical Practice health inequities Phuoc Le race-based medicine Source Type: blogs
A New Way to Gain Additional Diagnostic Information from Radiology Images
I had previously thought that I had a good grasp of the term biomarkerwhen I posted a note about it more than thirteen years ago (see:Use of Term Biomarker vs. Analyte). The definition that I used at that time was:any molecular species found to provide correlation to a particular phenotype or perturbation of a biological system.Unstated at that time was that the molecular species was found in a biologic fluids like blood, serum, or urine. Now comes an article that upsets this definition but that makes a persuasive argument for doing so (see:U-M startup analyzes data from patient imaging files ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 21, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Radiology Source Type: blogs
Why We Need End-to-End Encryption on PACS
Malware is being used to manipulate CT and MRI scans to create detrimental misdiagnoses, according to researchers from theBen-Gurion University Cyber Security Research Center inBeersheba,Israel. In lieu of the data breaches and cyber attacks that plagued hospitals in 2018, the researchers set out to learn how attackers use deep learning to implant fake cancerous nodules or remove real ones in medical scans without expert radiologists having the slightest idea. In a blind study, radiologists read a batch of real CT scans, 70 percent of which had been doctored by malware. For all of the scans with fake cancerous nodules, the...
Source: radRounds - April 19, 2019 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Electronic Vindication
Dilbert by Scott Adams, courtesy www.dilbert.comMy very first blog post as Doctor Dalai went online on 1/29/2005, beginning with a rant about ScImage lifted from one of my early AuntMinnie.com entries. In the subsequent fourteen years, my writing has become slightly more sophisticated (emphasizeslightly), but my basic premise has not wavered: PACS interfaces by and large are not as user-friendly as they could be, in other words, theySUCK. Forgive the epithet, but that is a very accurate statement, and most would agree.Most, but not the vendors. In browsing through my years of navel-gazing, I came across several entries whe...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - April 15, 2019 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
Data Annotators: The Unsung Heroes Of Artificial Intelligence Development
How do you create a smart algorithm? Where and how do you get the data for it? What do you need for a pattern recognizing program to work well and what are the challenges? Nowadays, everyone seems to be building artificial intelligence-based software, also in healthcare, but no one talks about one of the most important aspects of the work: data annotation and the people who are undertaking this time-consuming, rather monotonous task without the flare that usually encircles A.I. Without their dedicated work, it is impossible to develop algorithms, so we thought it is time to sing an ode to the superheroes of algorithm devel...
Source: The Medical Futurist - April 9, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Future of Medicine AI algorithm annotation data data annotation doctor Health Healthcare physician smart algorithm technology Source Type: blogs
Sudbury Is Still Waiting...
Bill Crumplin, with photo of his late wife Donna Williams, image courtesy Sudbury.comYou might recall mypost of a few years ago about Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, a medium-sized town that turned to its citizens to fund a PET/CT facility when the much-touted Health Service would not provide it. The wait-time was not just an inconvenience; the health of Sudbury citizens was adversely affected by the lack of local scanning capability.The wait goes on, it seems.My friend Stacey discoveredanother such tragedy related to imaging, or rather, lack thereof. As reported onSudbury.com:Donna Williams ’ dying wish was to raise money tow...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - April 4, 2019 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
Cash is the Best Incentive for Health Plan Members to Shop for Services
For many years, health plans have been searching for ways to incentivize their members to search for lower priced services such as imaging and surgical procedures like total hip replacement. I believe that the best incentive for this searching and cost-saving behavior is some sort of benefit like cash. A recent article covered this topic (see:How employers save money by paying employees to shop for healthcare) and below is an excerpt from it: According to a new RAND Corp. study published in Health Affairs, paying employees between $25 and $500 for using a transparency tool, and encouraging them to select a lowe...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 1, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Hospital Financial Medical Consumerism Medical Research Public Health Quality of Care Radiology Source Type: blogs
Epigastric pain radiating to the chest for 18 hours. ECG makes the Dx. Troponin makes the Dx. CT makes the Dx!
I was shown this ECG with no other information:What do you think?Hint: try to see through the artifact!I answered immediately: " High lateral MI with posterior MI. OMI. " (Occlusion Myocardial Infarction)I asked, " Did the patient present with chest pain? "Here is the history:" A middle-aged male complained of about 18 hours of epigastric pain that radiated to the chest. He also had an apparently new facial droop of equal duration. A stroke code was called, NIH stroke scale was only 1, and attention was turned to the chest pain. " BP was 148/83.How did I make this ECG diagnosis?There is subtle STE in aVL ...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 28, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
The Cruelty of Managed Medicare
By HANS DUVEFELT MD
Jeanette Brown had lost twenty pounds, and she was worried.
“I’m not trying,” she told me at her regular diabetes visit as I pored over her lab results. What I saw sent a chill down my spine:
A normal weight, diet controlled diabetic for many years, her glycosylated hemoglobin had jumped from 6.9 to 9.3 in three months while losing that much weight.
That is exactly what happened to my mother some years ago, before she was diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer that took her life in less than two years.
Jeanette had a normal physical exam and all her bloodwork except for the sugar num...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 18, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Matthew Holt Tags: Health Policy Medicare Hans Duvefelt Managed Care Source Type: blogs
