Applying Human Centered Design to IV Infusions: Interview with Dr. Beth Kolko, CEO of Shift Labs
With the aspiration to address healthcare gaps around globe by applying human centered design to medical technologies, Shift Labs, a 2015 Y Combinator company, is first tackling the infusion market with DripAssist. Formerly known as Drip Clip, as reported previously by Medgadget, DripAssist automatically calculates an IV infusion drip rate, total volume of the infusion, and can set an alarm to alert a nurse when the drip rate changes or stops. DripAssist has been in the veterinary market since 2014 and has been available for human use thanks to an FDA clearance beginning earlier this year. We had a chance to sit down with ...
Source: Medgadget - November 2, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Michael Batista Tags: Anesthesiology Cardiology Critical Care Emergency Medicine Exclusive Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
End of Life Liberty Project Moves to CascadiaNow
“I am pleased to announce the move of the End of Life Liberty Project to CascadiaNow!,” said Kathryn Tucker, the Executive Director of the ELLP.
“After incubating successfully as a program of the Disability Rights Legal Center it is the right time to move the ELLP to an independent status, where it can continue its cutting edge work to protect and expand the rights of terminally ill patients. CascadiaNow! offers the ELLP an outstanding platform from which to focus on its energy and attention on its substantive work. My own deep roots in the Cascadia bioregion made this sponsor appealing and of ...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - October 31, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care medical futility blog syndicated Source Type: blogs
Phylogenetic history of fungal protein phosphorylation – the anti-press release
I have long been interested in studying the rate by which protein interactions change during evolution. A new chapter in this ongoing research agenda has been published this week (article&perspective) in collaboration with the group ofJudit Vill én in the University of Washington and many contributions from the labs ofMaitreya J. Dunham,Eul àlia de Nadal and Francesc Posas. For the first time I tried to engage with the press by putting out apress-release and it was interesting to work withMary Todd Bergman at EMBL-EBI to digest the work to its core message. However, to atone for my sins of not being able to give suff...
Source: Evolution of Cellular Networks - October 13, 2016 Category: Cytology Tags: phosphorylation Source Type: blogs
Collaborative Care
Dr. Insel lauds University of Washington psychiatrist and researchers Wayne Katon and the collaborative care approach for depression he helped develop. (Source: NIMH Directors Blog)
Source: NIMH Directors Blog - October 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Thomas Insel Source Type: blogs
“ I know my pain doesn ’ t mean I ’ m damaging myself – but I still have pain ”
In the excitement of helping people understand more about pain neuroscience, which I truly do support, I think it’s useful to reflect a little on the history of this approach, and how it can influence the experience people have of their pain.
If we go right back to the origins of pain self management, in the groovy 1960’s and 1970’s – the first truly significant work in chronic pain self management came from Wilbert Fordyce (Fordyce, Fowler & Delateur, 1968). Bill Fordyce was a clinical psychologist working in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Washington, Seat...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 25, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Education/CME Pain conditions Science in practice acceptance biopsychosocial healthcare pain management Research Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs
The Importance of Friendship in Marriage
Friend is simply defined by Merriam Webster Dictionary as “a person who you like and enjoy being with”, and Best Friend as “one’s closest and dearest friend”. Friends have similar interests with each other and best friends even share the joys and sorrows of life. Having your spouse as your best friend can be one of the great benefits of marriage. If you and your spouse are already best friends, that’s wonderful; if not, maybe it’s time to understand the importance of friendship in marriage.
Relationship expert John Gottman, professor at the University of Washington, and author of The Seven Principles for Maki...
Source: World of Psychology - September 10, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Staci Lee Schnell, MS,CS,LMFT Tags: Friends Marriage and Divorce Men's Issues Relationships Self-Help Women's Issues Closeness Couples Counseling Friendship Intimacy john gottman Source Type: blogs
HemaApp Accurately Estimates Hemoglobin in Blood Using Standard Smartphone
Measurement of hemoglobin within blood helps to diagnose and manage a number of conditions, but this requires either blood draws or expensive pulse oximeters. At the University of Washington a team of researchers wanted to see whether a common smartphone (Nexus 5) can be used to perform the measurement at a high enough accuracy to be useful for medical practice.
They developed an app called HemaApp that uses the phone’s built-in light and camera to detect the color intensity of blood passing through a finger. The user simply places a finger over the camera lens, making a solid contact, and runs the app to do its thin...
Source: Medgadget - September 9, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Anesthesiology Cardiology Critical Care Emergency Medicine Military Medicine Pediatrics Surgery Source Type: blogs
Surgeon General Sends Out Letter on Opioids
The United States Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A., penned a letter in August 2016 that he sent to doctors throughout the country. The letter starts out, “asking for your help to solve an urgent health crisis facing America: the opioid epidemic.”
In the letter, Murthy notes that “it is important to recognize that we arrived at this place on a path paved with good intentions” and that nearly twenty years ago, “we were encouraged to be more aggressive about treating pain, often without enough training and support to do so safely.” Murthy believes that that aggression, combined with heavy marketing ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 7, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Pigment Cells: Not Just Pretty Colors
If you’ve ever visited an aquarium or snorkeled along a coral reef, you’ve witnessed the dazzling colors and patterns on tropical fish. The iridescent stripes and dots come from pigment cells, which also tint skin, hair and eyes in all kinds of animals, including humans. Typically, bright colors help attract mates, while dull ones provide camouflage. In humans, pigment helps protect skin from DNA-damaging UV light.
Researchers study cellular hues not only to decipher how they color our world, but also to understand skin cancers that originate from pigment cells. Some of these researchers work their way back, developmen...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - September 7, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Beth Azar Tags: Cell Biology Cells Cellular Imaging Cellular Processes Cool Images Proteins Source Type: blogs
Interscatter: New Technology for Implanted Device Communication
Electronic medical implants, if they are to have wireless connectivity, need a relatively powerful energy source to operate the antenna. Well, that’s an assumption that been thrown away by researchers at the University of Washington who have developed a way for implants to serve as signal reflectors that turn one wireless signal into another while encoding their own information in the process.
The thing that may strike techie folks as odd is that the incoming signal is Bluetooth and the reflected signal produced by the Interscatter implants is WiFi. Because of the combination of signals used, the technology allows f...
Source: Medgadget - August 19, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: News Source Type: blogs
Common Arguments against Immigration
This report finds more problems with immigrant assimilation in Europe, especially for those from outside of the European Union, but the findings for the United States are quite positive.The third work by University of Washington economist Jacob Vigdor compares modern immigrant civic and cultural assimilation to that of immigrants from the early 20th century (an earlier draft of his book chapter ishere, the published version is available in thiscollection). If you think early 20th century immigrants and their descendants eventually assimilated successfully, Vigdor’s conclusion is reassuring:“While there are reasons t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 8, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 8th 2016
In conclusion, spermidine inhibits lipid accumulation and necrotic core formation through stimulation of cholesterol efflux, albeit without changing plaque size or cellular composition. These effects, which are driven by autophagy in VSMCs, support the general idea that autophagy induction is potentially useful to prevent vascular disease.
Intestinal Autophagy Important in Calorie Restriction and Longevity in Nematodes
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/08/intestinal-autophagy-important-in-calorie-restriction-and-longevity-in-nematodes/
Based on the evidence accumulated from many years of studies of...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 7, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
An Effort to Obtain More Human Data on Plasma Transfusion from Young to Old
Here I'll link to a recent press article on Ambrosia, a company currently working to obtain more human data on the effects of transfusing young blood plasma into old individuals. The aim is to see whether or not this can usefully change the balance of signaling molecules to, say, spur greater stem cell activity. There has been a trial in Alzheimer's patients, but some signs in animal studies that transfusions from young to old don't do much. It seems useful to speed up the process of determining whether or not transfusions are an interesting line of research, or something that only looked promising. That means more patient...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 3, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Study: Early-childhood attention skills help predict long-term academic success better than IQ, socioemotional skills, or socioeconomic status
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Which early child characteristics predict long-term academic achievement and educational attainment? Research has focused on the role of early academic skills, learning enhancing behaviors, and socioemotional competencies as precursors of academic success. Identifying the relative contribution of each to children’s long-term academic achievement is important as it can inform the skills on which early education programs should focus.
The study
Along with my colleagues Jennifer Godwin and Ken Dodge, I recently published a study in School Psychology Review that examined how early child characteristics predict academi...
Source: SharpBrains - August 2, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Dr. David Rabiner Tags: Attention and ADD/ADHD Education & Lifelong Learning academic-achievement academic-skills attention-training educational attainment IQ socioeconomic status socioemotional Source Type: blogs
Seattle ’s Minimum Wage Increase: Sky Is Not Falling Yet, but “Ambiguous” Effects for Low-Wage Workers Due to Negative Unintended Consequences
This study only encompasses the first step of the phase-in, and later scheduled increases will raise the wage floor to levels that are outside the scope of most past U.S. experiences, making it difficult to estimate the m agnitude of potential effects. Some of the minimum wage literature has found that the long-run effects of an increase are greater in magnitude, as the authors of this report note saying “in the long-run, certain industries affected by the minimum wage, such as the fast food industry, have more opp ortunity to relocate, change the composition of their workforce, or invest in technologies that reduce thei...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 29, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Charles Hughes Source Type: blogs
