Smart, Low Cost Ventilator Tunes to Patient ’s Own Breathing
Because of the common expectation that ventilators would be in dire shortage during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many teams around the world have developed simple ventilators that utilize bag valve masks (AmbuBags) to pump air in and out of the lungs. Most of these do not provide nuanced control of ventilation settings such as the inspiration and expiration ratio and pressure in the lungs.
A Georgia Tech team has just unveiled a prototype, portable, emergency ventilator that provides clinicians with the ability to manage the respiration rate, tidal volume, inspiration and expiration ratio, and pressure applied to the ...
Source: Medgadget - April 29, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Critical Care Emergency Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
Keeping it Virtual: Easing Barriers to Online Securities Law Compliance in the Wake of COVID-19
Jennifer J. SchulpThanks to COVID-19, most of the financial business in the United States that was previously being done on-site is now being conducted virtually: financial markets are open, investment continues, and public companies continue to report.Normally, virtual business and certain securities law requirements, such as manual signatures, hard-copy filings, and in-person meetings, simply are not compatible. Regulators have temporarily relaxed some of these requirements during the crisis. That helps. But it also raises an obvious question: why not make such relief both broader and permanent?Virtual business was incre...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 29, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Jennifer J. Schulp Source Type: blogs
The Case against Homeschool Regulation
Kerry McDonaldEven as overone billion students around the world endure unchosen school ‐at‐home during the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in authentic homeschooling has grown. A newsurvey by EdChoice found that more than half of respondents have a more favorable view of homeschooling as a result of this global health crisis, while 26 percent have a less favorable view. As a homeschooling mother of four children and author ofUnschooled: Raising Curious, Well ‐Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, I can confidently say that what we are all experiencing now, being stuc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 24, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Kerry McDonald Source Type: blogs
State Rainy Day Funds
Chris EdwardsThe COVID-19 crisis and resulting recession will strain state government budgets. Unlike the federal government, the states are required to balance their general fund budgets each year. As the economy shrinks, state income and sales tax revenues will fall and budget gaps will rise.One way to fill budget gaps is to use state rainy day funds, which are also called budget stabilization funds. All states have such funds, but the mechanisms vary. The rules for fund deposits, withdrawals, and maximum fund sizes differ between the states. Some funds are constitutional and others are statutory. Reports byNCSL,Tax Foun...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 13, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Businesses Combat COVID-19
Chris EdwardsThe economics news is dismal with reports every day of shutdowns, layoffs, and furloughs. More than 16 million Americans have been thrown out of work so far, and we have entered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.Yet amid the gloom there are frequent reports of businesses and entrepreneurs making advances in the battle against Covid ‐19. The private sector is racing to produce vaccines, treatments, tests, and medical supplies to defeat the pandemic.Here are some recent developments:Formlabs ischurning out COVID-19 test swabs with 3-D printing, going from prototype to production in ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Businesses Combat Covid ‐19
Chris EdwardsThe economics news is dismal with reports every day of shutdowns, layoffs, and furloughs. More than 16 million Americans have been thrown out of work so far, and we have entered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.Yet amid the gloom there are frequent reports of businesses and entrepreneurs making advances in the battle against Covid ‐19. The private sector is racing to produce vaccines, treatments, tests, and medical supplies to defeat the pandemic.Here are some recent developments:Formlabs ischurning out Covid ‐19 test swabs with 3‑D printing, going from prototype to produc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Book Giveaway - April is World Health Month
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Source: Dr. Deborah Serani - April 9, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Tags: awareness days book giveaway Source Type: blogs
University Ventilator Supports Two Patients Independently
A group of engineers from Georgia Tech, Cranfield University in the UK, and Emory University, have developed their own version of a bag-mask-valve (Ambu-bag) ventilator. It combines the ubiquitous resuscitation bags that are found within hospitals and inside ambulances, a motorized device to squeeze the bag, and an oxygen concentrator.
The nice thing is that the design allows two bags to be squeezed alternatively, providing an option for the support of two patients at the same time, with independently adjustable flow volumes, or to ventilate a single patient at up to twice the respirator rate. The tidal volume admi...
Source: Medgadget - April 8, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Critical Care News Public Health Source Type: blogs
The plight of rural areas
The media focus mostly on major markets where consumers are concentrated, where they have offices and where their reporters and editors live and work. But the epidemic is, if anything,more dangerous and difficult to deal with rural areas. The main problem is simply lack of resources. Many rural hospitals have closed in recent years. There aren ' t enough beds or doctors and they are too far away for many people.Many outbreaks in rural areas and small cities in less populous regions have already occurred. These include Chambers County, Alabama; Dougherty County, Georgia; and the Shreveport, Louisiana area just for sta...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 1, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Georgia Tech Spearheads Distributed Protective Equipment Manufacturing Effort
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is drawing on its access to engineers, scientists, and people in the manufacturing world, to quickly create and help mass produce a variety of personal protective equipment to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
They’re focusing their efforts on using materials that are not already in short supply, so that face shields, for example, can be made from transparent table cloths, if it comes to that.
“We’re trying to figure out how to get these things to scale in the time we have,” said Shannon Yee, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Georgi...
Source: Medgadget - March 26, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Materials Public Health Source Type: blogs
Coronavirus and Market Resilience
Chris EdwardsThe spread of COVID-19 is starting to clobber the U.S. economy as businesses close and unemployment rises. Just about every country is feeling the pain, including China which was hit first by the virus.AWall Street Journal news article by Lingling Wei plays up the supposed advantage the communist Chinese have in handling the crisis. “To deal with the country’s economic ills, state firms pared electricity bills and lowered rents. State banks initiated hundreds of billions of dollars of low‐cost loans,” she notes. “State power saved China” one expert said, while another said that this is “the ad...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Iris Needle Guidance for Lumbar Punctures: Interview with Dev Mandavia, CEO of Ethos Medical
Ethos Medical, a startup founded by Georgia Tech alumni, has developed the Iris needle guidance system to assist clinicians in successfully performing lumbar punctures. The system allows a clinician to visualize the needle traveling through tissue in real time. Tracking the needle path in this way is intended to improve the success rate and reduce the chance of complications in such procedures.
Lumbar punctures are used to diagnose several diseases,
including multiple sclerosis and meningitis. However, they aren’t always
straight-forward, with certain patients posing a unique challenge to clinicians
because of the...
Source: Medgadget - March 18, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Anesthesiology Exclusive Neurology Neurosurgery Radiology Source Type: blogs
CryoLife Wins EU CE Mark for E-vita Open NEO Hybrid Stent Graft
CryoLife, Inc., a company based outside of Atlanta, Georgia, announced this week that it has received the European CE Mark for the E-vita Open NEO, a hybrid stent graft system for the treatment of aortic arch disease.
Aortic arch disease encompasses both aortic aneurysms and aortic dissections, which occur suddenly and could be fatal. According to the release, about 7,000 patients are treated surgically for aortic arch disease annually in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Many patients with either an aneurysm or dissection in the aortic arch also present with a dissected or aneurysmal descending thoracic aorta....
Source: Medgadget - March 6, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Cici Zhou Tags: Cardiac Surgery Source Type: blogs
On-X Ascending Aortic Prosthesis Cleared in EU
CryoLife, based in Kennesaw, Georgia, won EU regulatory clearance for the On-X Ascending Aortic Prosthesis (AAP) as a treatment option for people with poorly functioning aortic valves with a nearby ascending aortic aneurysm. The device, which combines a prosthetic valve and an ascending aortic prosthesis, can be implanted to address injured, damaged, or malfunctioning native or prosthetic valves.
The valve of the On-X is made of pure pyrolitic carbon, which is a thromboresistant material that is impressively strong. It was designed to reduce turbulence and behave more like a healthy native valve.
Here’s a video...
Source: Medgadget - March 3, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Cardiac Surgery Source Type: blogs
Renaissance Rads: Dr. Supriya Gupta MD
Dr. Supriya Gupta MD is a Radiologist at AMITA Health St. Mary ’s Hospital - Kankakee, IL Tell us about your area of clinical expertise within your practice/organization: I am responsible for pretty much all radiology studies except vascular IR, with a focus on neuroradiology and breast imaging, two image-intensive subspecialties. Along with that I look at the IT and dose sub-committee at the local site, advising solutions which benefit us and integrate the best technology with the highest benefit to cost ratio. I am also responsible for supervising quality metrics in the radiology department, with emphasis on mammograp...
Source: radRounds - February 21, 2020 Category: Radiology Authors: Robin Pine Miles Source Type: blogs
