Paper Test for Zika Powered by Gold Nanoparticles
Zika is often a silent disease that might not display any symptoms in infected persons, making screening particularly important. In the developing world, mobile testing systems that can be easily transported and used are not available, so sending a sample to a lab is still required to detect Zika infected individuals. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis may have come up with an effective, easy to use Zika test that can survive hot and humid environments and that can be administered by just about anyone.
It relies on embedding small squares of paper with gold nanoparticles that have a protein associated with Z...
Source: Medgadget - August 15, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Diagnostics Medicine Nanomedicine Pathology Public Health Source Type: blogs
At It Again: Texas Continues To Undercut Access To Reproductive Health Care
Texas policymakers are once again demonstrating their contempt for reproductive health care, the health care providers who offer those services, and the women who rely on them. The state has spent years crippling a once-successful program supporting family planning and related services for low-income residents — all in service of an ideological agenda to shut out and shut down health centers that have any connection to abortion services.
Now, the state is asking the like-minded Trump administration to provide an infusion of federal funding to support its diminished program. In the process, Texas and the Trump adminis...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 18, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Kinsey Hasstedt and Adam Sonfield Tags: Medicaid and CHIP Public Health Quality contraceptive coverage Planned Parenthood Section 1115 Waivers Texas Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Beyond “To Close Or Not To Close” Rural Hospitals
About 60 million Americans live in rural areas. And almost every health statistic shows they’re falling behind their fellow Americans who live in urban areas. Rural residents are less likely to have health insurance coverage through a job, have lower incomes, and have higher rates of death from heart disease and stroke.
However, there’s not only a health gap widening between urban and rural areas. There’s also a growing gap between the way systems of health work in different areas of the country.
As reported in a recent study commissioned by the Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF), seventeen rural hospitals in Texas ha...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 6, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Shao-Chee Sim Tags: Costs and Spending Featured GrantWatch Health Equity Hospitals Organization and Delivery Access Consumers Health Care Costs Health Care Delivery Health Philanthropy hospital closures Rural Health Care Texas Workforce Source Type: blogs
How Can We Improve Patient Satisfaction?
Patient satisfaction is the focal point of healthcare. It ’s the ultimate way to measure the effectiveness of a facility and the quality of practitioners. High patient satisfaction means strong patient retention and reduced risk of malpractice. Over the years, facilities have started to take patient satisfaction more seriously. A clinician’s CMS reimbu rsement depends on patient satisfaction scores via the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. Poor HCAHPS scores result in loss in funds for both facilities and underperforming physicians. However, constant innovation and strong...
Source: radRounds - June 24, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Advance Care Planning and End of Life (ACPEL) Conference
Discussions: A Randomized Controlled Trial and Video Intervention - Maureen Douglas, University of Alberta 4. Identification of indicators to monitor successful implementation of Advance Care Planning policies: a modified Delphi study - Patricia Biondo, University of Calgary5. The economics of advance care planning, Konrad Fassbender, University of Alberta; Covenant HealthSession 2: Health Care Consent, Advance Care Planning, and Goals of Care: The Challenge to Get It Right in OntarioHealth Care Consent, Advance Care Planning, and Goals of Care: The Challenge to Get It Right in Ontario - Tara Walton, Ontario Pal...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 15, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Study combines neuroimaging with machine learning to predict, with 96% accuracy, whether high-risk 6-month-old babies will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age 2
Researchers use brain imaging and machine learning to predict which high-risk infants will develop autism. Credit: Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities.
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A Single Brain Scan Has Been Used to Accurately Predict Autism at Just 6 Months Old (Science alert)
“Researchers have used brain scans and artificial intelligence to spot differences in how key areas of infant brains synchronise, allowing them to accurately predict which babies would develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a toddler…The research, led by scientists from the University of Carolina and Washington University, comes hot on the heels of an...
Source: SharpBrains - June 12, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Education & Lifelong Learning Health & Wellness Technology artificial intelligence ASD autism autism diagnosis autism spectrum disorder brain-function brain-scans high-risk machine-learning magnetic resonan Source Type: blogs
Computer Games to Combat Hearing Loss in Children
In an effort to provide audiologists with tools to remain competitive in the age of personal sound amplification products and over-the-counter hearing aids, Nancy Tye-Murray—otolaryngology, audiology, and communication sciences and disorders professor—looked for a way to help audiologists customize hearing health care. She worked with her colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis to create an auditory training game program for adults with hearing loss.
The Customized Learning: Exercises in Aural Rehabilitation (clEAR) allows users to select various options and then generates game-like listening drills based on t...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - June 7, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Shelley D. Hutchins Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology Hearing Assistive Technology hearing loss Language Disorders Schools Speech Disorders Source Type: blogs
Ipsihand, a Stroke Rehab Device That Deduces Intention Directly from Brain
Many post stroke patients end up with an upper extremity that doesn’t cooperate, requiring the brain to relearn how to use it. This can be a difficult process often requiring a lot of mental stamina, so there’s a lot of efforts underway to help improve the speed and quality of recovery. At Washington University in St. Louis researchers have developed and tested a stroke rehabilitation system that reads brainwaves and in turn controls a robotic device attached to the affected arm.
The patient wears an electroencephalography (EEG) cap, which is connected to a computer capable of identifying when the patient is ...
Source: Medgadget - June 6, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Neurology Rehab Source Type: blogs
Building Additional Serious Illness Measures Into Medicare Programs
The Need For Better Measures
The US health care system is not delivering the care that patients with serious illness need and want. For example, although most people say they would like to die at home, nearly 70 percent die in nursing homes, intensive care units, or other medical settings. Given that approximately 70 percent of people who die in the United States each year are Medicare beneficiaries, the new administration has an opportunity to implement changes to significantly improve the quality of end-of-life care.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) highlighted this opportunity during the confirmation hearing of then-Rep. Tom Pri...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 25, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Janet Corrigan, Josh Rising and Tom Valuck Tags: End of Life & Serious Illness Medicare Quality National Quality Forum Vital Signs Source Type: blogs
Optoacoustics May Allow Surgeons See Tumor Margins for Accurate Excisions
While doctors have gotten pretty good at finding and excising tumors, identifying whether they have been removed in their entirety remains a challenge. Histology slides are today’s standard, but processing the tissue, freezing, slicing it, staining, imaging, and analysis take much too long. Patients are often sent home, only to find out later that a part of the tumor remains in their body.
Photoacoustic imaging, which relies on ultrashort laser pulses to create acoustic waves waves within tissue, may allow for intraoperative imaging sufficiently detailed to reveal whether a given tissue is cancerous or healthy. Resea...
Source: Medgadget - May 19, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Diagnostics Pathology Surgery Source Type: blogs
Alzheimer's Symptoms: Navigational Skills May Deteriorate Long Before Memory
Typically, when we think of the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease we think of memory problems. Words go missing, names escape one’s grasp, daily tasks are forgotten. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have shown that making mental maps of where we have been and where we are going is a process the brain may lose before memory problems begin to show. People with these early symptoms can no longer navigate even a familiar area as they once did.
Read full article on HealthCentral about navigational skills and what they mean when Alzheimer's is a risk:
Purchase Minding Our Elders: Caregivers...
Source: Minding Our Elders - May 18, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Full Body Optoacoustic Functional Imaging of Small Animals
Researchers working at Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis developed a new photoacoustic technique called single-impulse photoacoustic computed tomography (SIP-PACT) that provides an amazing high resolution look inside small living animals such as mice. Photoacoustic imaging involves shining a laser light into tissue, which generates pulses of sound waves due to the tissue heating up and expanding. The effect is seemingly small, but ultrasound transducers are able to detect these sound waves to render an image.
The new technology provides a live look at moving organs, the blood flowing, and even the pro...
Source: Medgadget - May 17, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: News Radiology Source Type: blogs
Health Datapalooza 2017 Day 1: Data Liberation, Sharing, and Analytics
Welcome to Medgadget‘s coverage of Health Datapalooza 2017, an AcademyHealth event, in Washington, DC. The now annual event was launched in 2010 by the Obama administration as a hackathon-style program where attendees were challenged to develop prototype applications in 30 days from 30 data sets. Today, Health Datapalooza includes presentations from government and private sector healthcare experts, breakout panel sessions that dive into specific areas of interest, and an exhibit hall. The common thread of discussion throughout these activities is how health data is, can, or will eventually be used to improve heal...
Source: Medgadget - May 1, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Michael Batista Tags: Exclusive Source Type: blogs
40th Annual Health Law Professors Conference
If you teach health law, come to the 40th Annual Health Law Professors Conference, June 8-10, 2017, at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta. Here is the schedule:
Thursday, June 8, 20178:00-12:00 AM Tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Separate registration is required. Participants meet in the lobby of Georgia State Law to take a shuttle to the CDC.)
9:45 – 11:15 AM Tour of Grady Health System (Separate registration is required. Participants meet in the lobby of Georgia State Law and will walk over to Grady as a group.)
2:00 – 5:00 PM Conference Registration – Henso...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - April 27, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Larry Nassar and physician misconduct: No more code of silence
I am a bioethics researcher who studies physician misconduct. I am also a former gymnast.
I haven’t really kept up with gymnastics since I quit when I was 17. With the exception of the most recent Olympic Games, I avoid watching it on TV. The taciturn criticism from the commentators is too much for me to bear. I think, of course, she didn’t stick the landing. She just flew through the air at top speed doing something no human has ever done before! Then I throw the remote. Twenty-five years later, I’m obviously still a bit raw. So I have tried to ignore the Nassar story. But given that I am a bioethics researcher who ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 20, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/emily-e-anderson" rel="tag" > Emily E. Anderson, PhD, MPH < /a > Tags: Physician Source Type: blogs
