Econoclasm Chapter Two, continued: Medical externalities
I ' ve had a request to say more about inflation. That ' s a bit off topic for the time being, but I ' ll get to it.Medicine is also unlike most other goods and services in the
extent to which it has important positive externalities – that is, benefits for
people outside of the transaction, who are not the providers or consumers. (Of
course it has negative externalities as well, including carbon emissions and
notably, a huge quantity of plastic waste.) A straightforward positive
externality is infectious disease control. Prev enting or curing infectious diseases
prevents them from being transmitted to others. This ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 25th 2023
This study generates a comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic atlas of human atherosclerosis including 118,578 high-quality cells from atherosclerotic coronary and carotid arteries. By performing systematic benchmarking of integration methods, we mitigated data overcorrection while separating major cell lineages. Notably, we define cell subtypes that have not been previously identified from individual human atherosclerosis scRNA-seq studies.
Besides characterizing granular cell-type diversity and communication, we leverage this atlas to provide insights into smooth muscle cell (SMC) modulation. We integrate genome...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 24, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Sizes of Immune Cell Subsets Correlate with Human Mortality
In this study, we found that T cells and natural killer (NK) cells with low expression of CD56 were inversely associated with mortality while neutrophils were positively associated with mortality. In addition, we found myeloid dendritic cells to be nominally associated with a reduced odds of mortality, and CD4+ effector memory T cells and IgD- memory B cells to be nominally associated with increased mortality odds.
Several previous studies have shown a positive association between neutrophils and mortality and our study confirmed these previous findings. The number of neutrophils are preserved in older adults though...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 22, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Modeling the Financials of a Drug to Treat Aging
We live in the world in which the regulatory costs imposed on the development of new medicine are enormous. This leads to centralization and regulatory capture. Only the largest entities, the Big Pharma companies, have the funds needed to satisfy the demands of regulators. These companies exist in synergy with the regulators, guiding the regulators (and the politicians backing them) to ensure that (a) their revenue streams are large and stable, and (b) there are fewer challenges to those revenue streams. Big Pharma entities are easily viewed through a cynical lens because their "treating the world, improving lives" rhetori...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Bonus Features – December 17, 2023 – 97% of hospitals now capable of enabling electronic access to patient records, 70% of hospitals face hidden business continuity challenge, plus 31 more stories
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job.
News
In a blog post, ONC highlighted trends in patient access to electronic health information. Nearly all (97%) hospitals and roughly almost two-thirds (65%) of physician practices are now capable of enabling patient access. Th...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 17, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Aaniie American Organization for Nursing Leadership Andor Health Arcadia Healthcare Solutions Avalon Healthcare Solutions AVIA Biofourmis Brett Zelkind Bryan Olson Carallel CAST Software CLEAR CodaMetrix CommonWel Source Type: blogs
Some Good News To Wrap Up A Rather Mixed Year!
This is a cheering piece of news to wrap up 2023! Cancer vaccine wards off recurrence for up to three years By Natasha Robinson - Health Editor Updated 6:50AM December 15, 2023, The world ’s first cancer vaccine has been found to prevent cancer returning in melanoma patients for as long as three years, new results from a major clinical trial show. The cancer vaccine that has been developed (Source: Australian Health Information Technology)
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - December 17, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Healthy Data Management: How IT Assists Healthcare Institutions
The following is a guest article by Natalie Tkachenko, Healthcare Software Solutions Consultant at NIX
To obtain test results today, there’s no need to visit the hospital. Simply open a mobile app and download the report to your smartphone. Doctors remotely manage patient data without being tied to a specific medical facility. They also handle large volumes of data effortlessly within their hospitals. This became possible thanks to electronic health records, telemedicine, and cloud solutions. However, along with advancements, challenges in digital healthcare are increasing. Let’s discuss how to tackle them and ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 15, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Regulations Security and Privacy AI Amazon Web Services AWS Blockchain Cloud Storage Cybersecurity Data Management Digital Healthcar Source Type: blogs
Maybe giving too much credit
Health reporter Julie Rovner is perplexed thatRepublicans, who she maintains were once big supporters of public health, now seem to want to kill us all. Her examples of former Republican championship for public health are pretty narrow and a bit dubious. Funding for the NIH is mostly about biomedical research, not public health; and GW Bush ' s President ' s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, while certainly a good thing, was focused on Africa and probably as much about international relations as humanitarianism. But it ' s certainly true that the party has turned its back on these programs: The GOP-led House this y...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 15, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Science Snippet: Zooming In on Nanoparticles
Nanoparticles come in many different shapes and configurations. Credit: Adapted from Stevens, et. al., under Creative Commons License 4.0.
Nanoparticles may sound like gadgets from a science fiction movie, but they exist in real life. They’re particles of any material that are less than 100 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) in all dimensions. Nanoparticles appear in nature, and humans have, mostly unknowingly, used them since ancient times. For example, hair dyeing in ancient Egypt involved lead sulfite nanoparticles, and artisans in the Middle Ages added gold and silver nanoparticles to stained-glass windows. Over...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - December 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Tools and Techniques Cool Tools/Techniques Cool Videos Medicines Science Snippet Source Type: blogs
What Is the Immune System?
A computer-generated image of the rotavirus, a virus that commonly causes illness in children through inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Credit: Bridget Carragher, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.
What do antibodies, mucus, and stomach acid have in common? They’re all parts of the immune system!
The immune system is a trained army of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to block, detect, and eliminate harmful insults to your body. It can protect you from invaders like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
Innate and Adaptive
The immune system is often thought of as two...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - December 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Common questions Immunology Miniseries Infectious Diseases Microbes Source Type: blogs
Measles and immunity
The antivax brigade has a lot to answer for, not least the rise and rise of measles, which can be lethal, but is so easily staved off with vaccination. Even if it is not lethal for many, it can be a very problematic disease not least because in some ways it makes your immune system lose its memory of how to protect you from other diseases. While this effect may only be temporary in most cases, temporary can be long enough for another potentially lethal pathogen to take hold while you are vulnerable.
I’ve seen mention on social media of the notion that measles can delete your immune system’s memory of other dise...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 10, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Health and Medicine Vaccines Source Type: blogs
OMI in a pediatric patient? Teenagers do get acute coronary occlusion, so don't automatically dismiss the idea.
Acute coronary syndrome in a pediatric patient?Written by Kirsten Morrissey, MD with edits by Bracey,
Grauer, Meyers, and Smith An older teen was transferred from an outside hospital
with elevated serum troponin and and ECG demonstrating ST elevations. The patient was obese and had a medical history of only recurrent tonsillitis status post tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy but was otherwise healthy and fully vaccinated. He reported 1.5 days of chest pain that started as substernal and crushing in nature awakening him from sleep and occasionally traveling to right side of neck. The pain ...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - December 5, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Bracey Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 4th 2023
This study produced a great deal of data that continues to be mined for insights into human aging and effects of calorie restriction in a long-lived species such as our own, to contrast with the sizable effects on health and longevity in short-lived species such as mice.
In particular, and the topic for today, cellular senescence and its role in degenerative aging has garnered far greater interest in the research community in the years since the CALERIE study took place. Thus in today's open access paper, scientists examine CALERIE study data to find evidence for calorie restriction to reduce the burden of cellular ...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 3, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Applying Proteomics to the Development of Senolytic Therapies
We describe the technological advancements that have enabled researchers to address challenges inherent to the proteomic analysis of blood, such as the wide dynamic range of protein concentrations, and discuss multiple workflows that can be leveraged for the discovery of senescence biomarkers, senolytic targets, and cell-surface proteins. We also highlight how modern mass spectrometry-based technologies will open the door for future clinical applications, develop translationally relevant approaches to quantify aging and cellular senescence, and develop therapeutics for enhancing human healthspan. (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - November 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Toward a Wider Adoption of Digital Insurance Cards
This article looks at what it will take to let us all check in to our doctor’s office as easily as we wave our cell phone before a scanner in a retail store.
Start with Standards
A typical digital validation in health care must be recognized by software on the patient’s device as well as sites at multiple institutions: providers, payers, pharmacies, and more. Therefore, standards are a prerequisite to digital insurance cards. Luckily (as the saying goes), there are many to choose from.
HL7, which has been setting standards for health care since 1987, leapt into the modern age of computer standards by adopting...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - November 22, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability CARIN Alliance Commons Project Foundation Digital Insurance Card FHIR hl7 JP Pollak Leavitt Partners Mark Scrimshire OnyxOS Patient Identificat Source Type: blogs
