The next technology war? Artificial intelligence, Penn Medicine IT exec says
With the personal computer OS, browser and smartphone wars behind us, vendors including Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft are setting sights on AI devices. Here ’s what hospitals need to know now about the emerging technologies. (Source: Healthcare IT News Blog)
Source: Healthcare IT News Blog - March 3, 2017 Category: Information Technology Tags: Cloud Computing Source Type: blogs
Wearable Fitness Monitors Get An Evidence Based Thumbs Up. Who Would Have Guessed?
This appeared last week.Wearables earn their place in fitness therapyAuthored by Sarah ColyerIssue 6 / 20 February 2017 WEARABLE activity monitors have earned a place in the “menu” of strategies to help patients become more active, experts agree.Around 20% of Australian adults now own some form of wearable technology, and the devices are increasingly being incorporated into health research to provide more reliable, objective measures of physical activity than self-r eports.Health insurers are also heavily promoting wearables, with one insurer now rewarding customers with flybuys points for every day they reach 10...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - March 2, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Yomi, The First Robotic Dental Surgery System Now Cleared by FDA
Neocis, a company based in Miami, Florida, just announced winning FDA clearance to introduce Yomi, the first robotically assisted dental surgical system. Yomi’s software is used to plan a procedure based on a patient’s CT scan. During the procedure, the system continuously tracks the patient and controls the direction of the drill as the clinician advances it into tissue. This is supposed to guarantee that the physician doesn’t stray away from the correct location, depth, and orientation of the plan, while still controlling the actual drill delivery.
The software allows for quick plan changes, if necess...
Source: Medgadget - March 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Dentistry Source Type: blogs
Here ’s why everyone is mum after ransomware attacks
Did you see the news yesterday about the ransomware attack against Emory Healthcare in Atlanta?
According to Health Data Management, a hacker breached the appointment scheduling system at the Emory Clinic’s Orthopedics and Spine Center and the Brain Health Center, and demanded an unspecified ransom. The breach affected 79,930 patients.
Emory Healthcare said it learned of the hack on Jan. 3, and the organization submitted a breach report to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on Feb. 21.
But that’s all the organization said, and for good reason. It’s the same reason why MedStar Health in the Washington-Baltim...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - March 2, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Neil Versel Tags: security FBI HIMSS17 ransomware Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Scene Interview with Steve Lieber at the Close of #HIMSS17
As the HIMSS 2017 Annual conference came to a close, Healthcare Scene had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Lieber, President and CEO of HIMSS, who will be retiring at the end of the year. Being the last HIMSS conference with Steve Lieber at the helm, we wanted to get a feel for how Steve was feeling and take a look back at his 17 years at the helm of this organization.
In this interview, we talk with Steve about how HIMSS has changed over his 17 years running the organization and about some of the pivotal moments in that time. We also ask Steve about his replacement. While he didn’t give us any names he did giv...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 2, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: Healthcare HealthCare IT HIMSS HIMSS 2017 HIMSS Orlando HIMSS17 Steve Lieber Source Type: blogs
Lasers Measure Cells ’ Stiffness to Identify Neoplastic Ones
Unusual softness or stiffness is often an indicator of the presence of cancer in what otherwise may look like healthy tissue. There are already devices on the market that feel how elastic a given tissue is, but they come in contact and sample a very large number of cells at once. Researchers at Duke University have developed a sensor that can quickly deduce the stiffness of individual cells in a sample without actually squeezing them.
The trick lies in identifying what makes one cell stiffer than another, and measuring those parameters using lasers and a camera. Turns out that the amount of structural order within the cel...
Source: Medgadget - March 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Diagnostics Genetics Oncology Pathology Source Type: blogs
World ’s Smallest Jet Engine to Power Tiny Medical Devices
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany and Harbin Institute of Technology in Shenzhen, China have come up with a tiny self-powered propulsion system for devices small enough to move through various vessels inside our bodies. The technique does not generate any bubbles to push microscopic objects, but instead works similar to a jet engine that pushes air through itself to generate thrust.
These microengines consist of nanotubes made of silicon dioxide. They are coated with the enzyme urease that reacts with urea, turning it into ammonia and carbon dioxide. As the nanotubes enc...
Source: Medgadget - March 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Nanomedicine Source Type: blogs
Sometimes You Can ’t Predict What Will Actually Make A Difference. Skype Strikes Again!
This appeared last week.Skype sessions with physios dramatically improve OA: studyHugo Wilcken23 February 2017 Skype sessions with physiotherapists can dramatically improve pain and function in knee osteoarthritis, Melbourne researchers have found.They say their study, published Wednesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows the huge potential of online delivery of non-drug therapies for chronic pain.The study randomised 148 patients with knee OA to either a control group or to seven Skype sessions over three months, during which a physiotherapist would demonstrate exercises and teach patients how to do them.Patients ...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - March 1, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Financial And Political News Relevant To E-Health And The Health Sector In General.
March 2, 2017 Edition.An interesting week with the Trumpian nonsense rolling on and Australia having more than a little problem or two with both politics and the budget. The Reserve Bank Governor made it clear things are becoming pretty difficult to balance for the good of the population.http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/rba-governor-philip-lowe-stresses-need-for-financial-stability/news-story/abf11d49f908cc112ec69bb2979e2b67RBA governor Philip Lowe stresses need for financial stabilityReserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe in Sydney.The Australian12:00AM February 25, 2017David RogersReserve ...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - March 1, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Scopis Target Guided Surgery System Cleared in U.S.
Scopis, a company headquartered in Berlin, Germany, won FDA clearance for its augmented reality navigation system for ENT surgeries. The technology provides visual guided paths, superimposed onto the live imaging from the endoscope, that help surgeons guide their tools safely toward difficult to reach targets.
The technology relies on Scopis’s Hybrid Navigation platform that tracks the head in real-time using optical and electromagnetic techniques, automatically aligning previously captured imagery with real-time data coming from the scope. The optical and electromagnetic techniques can be used individually or togeth...
Source: Medgadget - March 1, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: ENT Neurosurgery Source Type: blogs
Graphene-Coated Contact Lenses Block Radiation, Prevent Tear Evaporation
A team of Korean researchers has developed graphene-coated contact lenses that can protect their wearers from electromagnetic radiation and dehydration. It’s not immediately obvious what are the practical implications for this technology, but it’s certainly intriguing.
The graphene-coated lenses were tested for their ability to shield radiation by positioning egg whites below these lenses and placing them inside a microwave. Blasting the eggwhites with microwave radiation led to the contact lenses simply converting the microwaves into heat that dissipated into nearby air. The egg whites themselves remained unco...
Source: Medgadget - March 1, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Nanomedicine Ophthalmology Source Type: blogs
CleanSlate UV Sanitizer for Mobile Devices in Healthcare: An Interview
The average cell phone is dirtier than you might think. It has been estimated that a typical mobile phone could be up to six times dirtier than a public toilet and as many as one in four handsets could carry pathogenic bacteria. While we wash our hands, our phones rarely, if ever, get cleaned, and so they accumulate a significant level of contamination.
This is a concern in healthcare facilities, where patients could be at risk of illness from introduced pathogens. While ethanol hand gels are provided in many hospitals, these are only of limited use if people immediately re-infect their hands by handling their cell phones ...
Source: Medgadget - March 1, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
FDA Cleared: MRIdian Linac, The First Linear Accelerator and MRI In One
ViewRay out of Oakwood Village, Ohio, received FDA clearance for its MRIdian Linac radiotherapy system, the first that combines a linear accelerator with an MRI to provide combined image guidance and therapy. It can allow physicians to see whether the radiation beam is properly hitting the tumor and what effect it may be having.
The system features 6 megavolt linear accelerator and 0.35 T MRI, and the two can work simultaneously thanks to the shielding that protects the linac from the magnets.
The Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Barnes-Jewish Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis will be the first hospitals to ...
Source: Medgadget - March 1, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Radiation Oncology Source Type: blogs
I ’m back (and looking for work)
Hey there, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged here. I will be doing more of it in the near future because I’ve just been unceremoniously let go from my day job in the immediate aftermath of me owning HIMSS coverage again and having the top two stories on the site on Monday and the top story on Tuesday. Their loss.
That means I will be posting daily in the short term, but it also means I’m looking for work. Here’s a link to my résumé, in case you know of any suitable opportunities.
I am thinking maybe my career in daily/weekly journalism has run its course after 25 years, including th...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - March 1, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Neil Versel Neil Versel Tags: media personal notes Jobs Source Type: blogs
10 next steps for the national health IT agenda
At a pivotal moment for healthcare, it ' s time to reform regulatory approaches, improve access to data for care coordination and establish a national patient ID, says John Halamka, MD – who offers some perspective to CMS and ONC on the future of MACRA, interoperability and more.
(Source: Healthcare IT News Blog)
Source: Healthcare IT News Blog - March 1, 2017 Category: Information Technology Tags: Government & amp; Policy MACRA Meaningful Use Privacy amp; Security Quality and Safety Source Type: blogs
