Index: Evolution's Clinical Guidebook
In the past few blogs, I ' ve been discussing the recent publication of my book,Evolution ’s Clinical Guidebook: Translating Ancient Genes Into Precision Medicine. The premise of this book is that modern medicine is based on an understanding of evolutionary processes. Evolution shows us the relationships between the subdisciplines of medicine that benefit directly from Precision Medicine (i.e., pathology, microbiology, clinical genetics, pharmacology, and bioinformatics). In Evolution ' s Clinical Guidebook, all of these diverse fields are brought together, under the subject of evolution. To illustrate, I have listed bel...
Source: Specified Life - May 11, 2019 Category: Information Technology Tags: bioinformatics clinical genetics evo-devo evolution precision medicine rare disease Source Type: blogs
Contents: Evolution ’s Clinical Guidebook: Translating Ancient Genes Into Precision Medicine
In yesterday ' s blog, I announced the publication of my book,Evolution ’s Clinical Guidebook: Translating Ancient Genes Into Precision Medicine. The premise of this book is that modern medicine is based on an understanding of evolutionary processes. Basically, without evolution, the fledgling field of precision medicine would wither and die, and we would lose our opportunity to prevent, diagnose, and treat the diseases that account for the bulk of morbidity and mortality in humans and in animals.This book is available fromAmazon or from thepublisher ' s website. If you are fortunate enough to have full institutional acc...
Source: Specified Life - May 10, 2019 Category: Information Technology Tags: bioinformatics clinical genetics evo-devo evolution precision medicine rare disease Source Type: blogs
Just Published: Evolution ’s Clinical Guidebook: Translating Ancient Genes Into Precision Medicine
This month, Academic Press has published my book,Evolution ’s Clinical Guidebook: Translating Ancient Genes Into Precision Medicine. The premise of this book is that modern medicine is based, in one way or another, on an understanding of evolutionary processes. If evolution were a fabrication, then we would not be able to make any sense of the genomic data that is pouring out of research laboratories. We would not be able to design rational, cost effective, screening protocols to test the effectiveness of new drugs. We would not be able to identify the human sub-populations that will benefit from gene-targeted therapies....
Source: Specified Life - May 9, 2019 Category: Information Technology Tags: bioinformatics clinical genetics evo-devo evolution precision medicine rare disease 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
How should we measure quality of life impact in rare disease? Recent learnings in spinal muscular atrophy
Office of Health Economics -The measurement of quality of life in the context of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is challenging. This is because the disease is experienced by children and is rare, which makes data collection difficult. This briefing reports on a symposium that outlined some lessons that can be learnt from the SMA context that might be more widely applicable to other rare diseases.BriefingMore detail (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - April 1, 2019 Category: UK Health Authors: The King ' s Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Quality of care and clinical outcomes Source Type: blogs
SCOOP: Facebook enters EMR business
by MATTHEW HOLT
Big news out of Mountain View, California today as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social networking giant was going to formally enter the EMR business. Sandberg explained that Facebook already has all Americans and most of the world’s population on its system and that adding a little bit of information about their health would be trivial given that it’s easy with AR to abstract that information from their profiles, not to mention that everyone’s phone is already sending data back to Facebook.
In particular, Sandberg highlighted the fact that Facebook has already capt...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 1, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Happy 14th birthday to the Health Business Blog
Happy 14th!
My main job is president of Health Business Group, a boutique healthcare strategy consulting firm I founded in 2003. As a sideline, I write the Health Business Blog, where I provide a behind the scenes look at the business of healthcare, featuring my spin on healthcare topics in the news, interviews with entrepreneurs, and policy prescriptions.
The blog is turning 14 years old this month! Continuing a tradition I established with birthdays one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen I have picked out a favorite post from each month. ...
Source: Health Business Blog - March 12, 2019 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Announcements Blogs Source Type: blogs
America ’s inadequate LGBTQ medical education
As medical students, we are asked to learn in exquisite detail the ins and outs of rare diseases that we may never encounter in clinical practice. Yet the education we receive on caring for a population numbering in the millions is sorely lacking, and the health of those patients — the members of our communities […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 3, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/haidn-foster" rel="tag" > Haidn Foster < /a > < /span > Tags: Education Medical school Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs
The UK strategy for rare diseases: 2019 update to the implementation plan for England
Department of Health and Social Care -This update on the strategy ’s progress covers five main areas: empowering those affected by rare diseases; identifying and preventing rare diseases; diagnosis and early intervention; coordination of care; and the role of research. It also sets out the actions that Department of Health and Social Care and partner organisatio ns will take over the next year to implement the commitments of the strategy.ReportsDepartment of Health and Social Care - publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - February 27, 2019 Category: UK Health Authors: The King ' s Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Local authorities, public health and health inequalities Source Type: blogs
Backpack Health ’s App for People with Rare Diseases in Developing Countries: Interview with CEO
Backpack Health, a health-tech company based in Boston, has partnered with two organizations specializing in rare diseases, Care Beyond Diagnosis and FYMCA Medical, to bring their mobile and cloud-based health management application to patients with rare diseases living in low-income countries.
Rare diseases can be significantly challenging for affected patients, with mountains of paperwork required to keep track of a condition and explain it to non-specialist medical staff, who may lack adequate knowledge and awareness of a specific malady.
These difficulties are compounded in a low-income environment, which may lack eve...
Source: Medgadget - November 20, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Medicine Net News Pediatrics Public Health Source Type: blogs
AI Doesn ’ t Ask Why — But Physicians And Drug Developers Want To Know
We describe phenomena using science, which gives us a sense of understanding and structure – yet we often lack actual understanding about what we’re observing, or why our treatments work. We have scientific explanations that may appear solid at first glance, but are flimsy upon closer inspection. More commonly, I imagine, we rely on scientific explanations as heuristics to enable us to get through our days, as a scaffold upon which to organize our information.
I suspect AI is viscerally uncomfortable, and challenging to apply to clinical care or drug discovery (see part 2), because of the psychological importance and c...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 16, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Artificial Intelligence Pharmaceuticals Physicians AI David Shaywitz Health Tech Source Type: blogs
Future Trends Help You Choose The Most Fitting Medical Specialty
“I’m a medical student. Which specialty should I choose and what skills will a future doctor need?” “I’m in radiology. Looking at the recent advancements in medical technology, was it a wise choice or should I train myself in something different, too?” These are the questions I most frequently receive after my keynote speeches. While all should be aware of their own physical and intellectual capabilities, here are a few pieces of advice which skills to concentrate on based on the current and future trends in healthcare.
The most significant trends in healthcare
Artificial intelligence, wearable sensors, virtual...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 13, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Medical Education Medical Professionals capabilities crowdsourcing digital digital health digital literacy gamification Healthcare Innovation medical specialties medical specialty patient design skills tech Source Type: blogs
Conference on Drug Pricing Inject New Statistics Into Debate, Few New Insights (Part 2 of 2)
The first part of this article described the upward pressures on costs and some of the philosophical debates over remedies. This section continues the discussion with several different angles on costs.
Universal access and innovation
It’s easy to call health care a human right. But consider an analogy: housing could also be considered a human right, yet no one has the right to a twenty-room mansion. Modern drug and genetic research are creating the equivalents of many twenty-room mansions, and taking up residence means the difference between life and death for someone, or perhaps between a long productive life and on...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - November 9, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Healthcare Reform Medical Economics Personalized Medicine Precision Medicine Drug Pricing Healthcare Costs Medication Pricing Source Type: blogs
AFM: The scary polio-like illness
It is a scary illness, not just for parents but for doctors, too: Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) causes sudden weakness and loss of muscle tone in the arms and legs and can go on to cause even more serious problems.
It’s not just the symptoms that are scary. It’s also scary because we don’t know what causes it. Although the symptoms are similar to polio, patients with AFM have tested negative for polio. At one point it was thought that it was caused by another enterovirus, but that didn’t end up being the explanation. It may be another virus, or it may be some sort of toxin, or something else entirely — or perhaps ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 9, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Neurological conditions Parenting Source Type: blogs
