High-Tech Devices Keep the Elderly Safe From Afar

Many feel right at home as they know they are not alone...sensors and computers can take the place of having cameras all over...and perhaps a mixture is good...companies like Intel are busy developing such technologies that are user friendly and don't detract and become an annoyance instead of an aid...if done properly seniors feel quite at home with the devices....BD 

Technology systems to underpin living independently, or what some call “aging in place,” are still years from being rolled out in a big way, awaiting adequate financing for research and other incentives, like coverage by insurance companies, according to Mr. Nobel’s study, which was released in March by the Center for Aging Services Technologies, a program of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.

But projects are under way around the country to test high-tech gadgets for home use, including wireless sensors and devices to regulate temperature, lights and appliances, and sophisticated medical monitors. And some care providers have begun to equip clients with devices that fit their needs.  A survey by AARP found that older people were willing to use high-tech devices at home, and to pay about $50 a month.

Intel researchers are developing devices like a “memory bracelet” that vibrates at a specified time to remind the wearer of a doctor’s appointment or to take medication. Also in trials are sensor-infused carpets — Eric Dishman, Intel’s director of product research, calls them “magic carpets” — and wearable sensors, which would measure changes in gait, to help avoid falls.

Intel invested $3 million with the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology, which runs what it calls a living laboratory, with 225 volunteers. The project, which also received $7 million from the federal aging institute, uses sensors on walls, doorways and appliances — and computer games — to detect cognitive decline.

High-Tech Devices Keep the Elderly Safe From Afar - NYTimes.com

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UCLA Health Care Workers Vote for Strike after Fruitless Wages Talks

Hospital strikes continue...several facilities involved here...BD  

Union leaders said Friday that health care workers at University of California medical facilities in the Los Angeles area have voted to authorize a strike.
The 20,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees' local branch could walk off their jobs 10 days after the union notifies the UC system, said union President Lakesha Harrison.
Among those who have voted for a strike are radiology, respiratory and operating room technicians and other maintenance workers in the UC health care system, which includes Santa Monica- UCLA Medical Center and four other hospitals plus student health centers.  Harrison said UC health care and service workers earn an average of 25 percent less than similar employees at other hospitals, with some being paid as little as 10 U.S. dollars an hour.

UCLA Health Care Workers Vote for Strike after Fruitless Wages Talks

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Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) - personalized medicine 101

If you have not read up yet on personalized medicine this is a great article that will go through the basics in layman's terms...there are 4 links below to each section...and the last area is the toughest...the challenges as it will all be work in progress for quite a while to come...so somebody pay the bill....BD 

overview > the science > the promise > the challenges

Personalized medicine uses new methods of molecular analysis to better manage a patient’s disease or predisposition toward a disease. It aims to achieve optimal medical outcomes by helping physicians and patients choose the disease management approaches likely to work best in the context of a patient’s genetic and environmental profile. Such approaches may include genetic screening programs that more precisely diagnose diseases and their sub-types, or help physicians select the type and dose of medication best suited to a certain group of patients.

Some of the issues raised by personalized medicine include: 

Intellectual property - Patent protection

Regulatory oversight - FDA regulation with guidelines and clinical trials

Reimbursement - Who gets tested for what and how to code

Privacy, confidentiality- and psychological and social effects

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, diagnostics companies, researchers, medical educators, information technology managers, healthcare providers, laboratories, patient advocates, policymakers, payers and other stakeholders must all work together to carefully review the issues at hand and consider their interconnected implications.

Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) - personalized medicine 101 (the overview)

Technorati Tags: Personalized medicine,Medicine,healthcare providers,Labs,Biotech,Advocates,DNA

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Locally owned pharmacies see future in personalized prescriptions

Interesting article and makes sense as personalized medicine moves in...there could be a rise for the need of local owned pharmacies unless the large chains refocus to accommodate the consumer needs...BD 

In pharmacies, everything old might be new again, particularly for the independent, locally owned shop with a deep and loyal customer base.
An innovation like compounding - where the pharmacists customize the medicine to an individual's needs - is where the independent and local druggist can flourish, said Jim Martin, executive director of the Texas Pharmacy Association.
It's what Lovoi & Sons Pharmacies Inc., along with a few other local family-owned drug stores, is doing.
John, 69, and J.J., 65, revived compounding a few years ago as a way to serve their customers better.

The Beaumont Enterprise - Locally owned pharmacies see future in personalized prescriptions

Technorati Tags: Pharma,Prescriptions,Personalized Medicine

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Breathe slowly to cut your blood pressure

What happened to taking 10 deep breaths, it appears there's a better solution...the Resperate Machine....there's even clinical trials on this one from the Mayo Clinic and it has FDA approval... guess it is worth a try if the pills are doing the work for you...doctors claim results have been seen within minutes...I would guess Yoga and perhaps learning meditation could have similar results but this device sets up the program on a "how to" basis...but a patient should in no way stop taking pills without consulting their physician...from the demo on the website the music sounds nice...the cost for the unit will set you back about $299.95 but there's a price break if you purchase 2 on the per unit price...if you happen to have a health savings account, it does qualify for the purchase as well....BD 

Then it plays musical notes through headphones  -  the idea is that the patient breathes in on one note, and breathes out on another. The length of each tone is gradually increased so breathing slows down. 

Tests show slower breathing relaxes the muscles in blood vessel walls, making them more flexible.
This eases the pressure exerted on them when the heart tries to pump  blood round the body. The handset contains a micro-chip which works out the ideal breathing rate for each patient and plays the appropriate musical tones through the headset.

Breathe slowly to cut your blood pressure | Mail Online

Hat Tip:  Medlaunches.com

Technorati Tags: Blood Pressure,Healthcare,Hypertension,Medical devices

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Mechaphilia - A real mental disorder or a chance to make some money???

A man that prefers cars...has claimed to have had sex with over 1000 cars?  I think we need some gene sequencing here...new one for the books by all means...anyway, I guess anyone with a car that would appeal to this person might want to make sure it's kept in the garage...in case the mood for a "one night stand in the parking lot" would take over as he might be up to more than just bumping the tires...this is definitely the weird story of the week...and no doubt he stands to cash in...and he has 500 more buddies all getting together in California....but hey this this happening with other objects too, people addicted to their computers...but at least the computer is in the confines of their home and not subject to a "drive by" in a parking lot somewhere...well here's the You Tube with all it's glory...would love to hear some comments from anyone in the world of psychiatry comment on this one...."Dr. Strangelove" for sure...and it sounds like the bunch has their support group and network up and running....it's the holiday weekend and news events are slower than normal...so this is about as good as it gets...BD 

Edward Smith, who suffers from mechaphilia - a sexual attraction to machines, will be professing his unusual love for cars on a Channel 5 documentary “My car is my lover” Wednesday, May 28. The show, which will air at 10 p.m., features Smith and shows him meeting other enthusiasts at a rally for mechaphiliacs in California.

Mr Smith, 57, first had sex with a car at the age of 15, and claims he has never been attracted to women or men. But he confesses that many of the cars he has had sex with have belonged to strangers or car showrooms.

Mr Smith is now part of a global community of more than 500 “car lovers” brought together by Internet forums.

APP.com | Monmouth and Ocean counties pluckpersona | Asbury Park Press

Related Story:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2000899/Man-admits-%27having-sex%27-with-1%2C000-cars.html

Technorati Tags: Mental Disorders,Support Groups,Cars

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Nearly Dead, Woman Comes Back to Life

 Her heart had stopped 3 times....15 hours of no measurable brain waves...she had no heart beat, then woke up and started speaking...physicians are baffled on this one...one of those small "miracles" we all pray for....be sure to watch the video at the site...the fact that she was an organ donor delayed removing the ventilator....BD

She was taken by ambulance to a local West Virginia hospital when her heart stopped after experiencing symptoms of a heart attack. For more than 17 hours, Thomas had no measurable brain waves, according to her doctors.

Doctors tried everything to save Thomas' life, even inducing hypothermia in an attempt to lower her body temperature and stimulate the brain.

Ten minutes after the medical staff stopped the respirator -- while nurses were removing the tubing -- Velma Thomas woke up. "She moved her arm, and we thought it was reflexes," Pence told ABC News.

ABC News: Nearly Dead, Woman Comes Back to Life

Technorati Tags: Miracle,Heart Attack,Brain,Respirator

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GE Healthcare And Centrak Introduce Bed-Level Location Technology To Help Healthcare Providers Track Tagged Mobile Medical Equipment

Wireless Plug and Play technology and battery powered...a tag is used for either assets or people and can either be attached or worn...middle ware software will also inform of events such as a tag removal.... and higher levels of accuracy are attained by using the Centrak dual tracking zones...it gets the location down to the room...BD 

GE Healthcare, through a collaboration with CenTrak, Inc. of Newton, PA, announced the availability of a new RFID technology capable of dividing a room or segmenting a bay by creating radio frequency identification (RFID) "virtual walls." The technology was developed to meet the needs of healthcare providers to track tagged mobile medical equipment down to portion of a single room. This sub-room-level distinction in certain areas of the hospital provides an important enhancement to RFID room-level accuracy.

GE Healthcare And Centrak Introduce Bed-Level Location Technology To Help Healthcare Providers Track Tagged Mobile Medical Equipment

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Nurses attempt to unionize at Tenet hospital in California

Claiming that they are understaffed and overworked, nurses at a Southern California hospital owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. have taken steps to form a union.

Nurses at Placentia-Linda Hospital in Orange County filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board to join the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.

Placentia-Linda nurses, which previously attempted to form a union in 2003, said hospital management won't address issues such as unsafe staffing levels and assigning patients without considering the level of care they need.

Nurses attempt to unionize at Tenet hospital in California - Dallas Business Journal:

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What Your Cell Phone Knows About You

What does your phone know...and how much additional information can it gather.... "Basically, that means that with just a cell phone, you can go into organizations and find out how happy and how productive people are, which is really pretty amazing.. Phone companies are required to keep location data for a certain period of time for just that purpose. That fact is, cell phones have to talk to cell towers, and that means they always know where you are."....your cell phone can be a sociometer, gathering all kinds of information....technology is there, but there's privacy issues as to what is to be shared...new tern coined "Reality Mining"....and some information can be useful with fighting diseases....BD 

Can your cell phone tell if you're happy or overworked?  Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think it can do that and more--separate the rich from the poor, the sick from the healthy, even the outgoing from the introverted. Sandy Pentland, director of MIT's Human Dynamics Research program, has focused his work on that unlikely task: using gadgets as simple as a cell phone to better understand the quirks and patterns of human behavior.

In his most recent experiments, however, the sociometer hasn't been necessary. Instead, Pentland has tracked his subjects through their cell phones, which are carried by around four out of five Americans. Pentland spoke with Forbes.com about the benefits his tracking experiments could offer to society, the privacy problems they pose and how he hopes to strike a balance between the two.

What Your Cell Phone Knows About You - Forbes.com

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N.Y. Man Dies From Toxic Aphrodisiac

Toad venom...it can disrupt the rhythm of the heart...and illegal....

The alert went out Friday after New York City's poison control center received a report from an area hospital that a 35-year-old man had died after ingesting some of the hard, brown substance.

The product is sold at sex shops and neighborhood stores under names including Piedra, Love Stone, Jamaican Stone, Black Stone and Chinese Rock. The FDA has banned the substance, but shipments from overseas suppliers still slip past customs.

ABC News: N.Y. Man Dies From Toxic Aphrodisiac

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E-Script Advocates Respond to AMA

The letter is calling for ePrescribing standards....items that will help break down the barriers faced today with the adoption and advancement of physicians...lack of technical standards is one primary area addressed....BD 

Industry stakeholders on May 22 sent a letter to congressional leaders in response to an earlier letter from the American Medical Association to Congress that called for the federal government to complete all national technical standards to support electronic prescribing by the end of 2009.

The AMA letter noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April issued a final rule adopting three standards to support formulary and benefits, medication history, and fill status notification components of e-prescribing. But the AMA called for quick action on three additional standards covering medication instructions, standard terminology and real-time prior authorization. “So, it really is essential that these three incomplete standards be finalized and fully functional in order to realize the truly robust e-prescribing benefits sought by so many,” the AMA letter stated.

E-Script Advocates Respond to AMA

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Hero Pup Gets Doggie Pacemaker

Veterinarians believed she had a heart attack, Medtronics donated the pacemaker...nice story...and after recovery she will go back to work...BD

After years of helping authorities look for murder victims and survivors of natural disasters, a search-and-rescue dog named Molly has been rescued herself.

Molly, refering to the famous "Unsinkable Molly Brown," Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in the Brown family home in Saginaw, Mo. After years of helping authorities look for murder victims and the survivors of natural disasters, a Newton County search-and-rescue dog named "Molly" has been rescued herself. Surgeons at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine in Columbia on Thursday May 22, 2008 installed a pacemaker in the 5-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever's heart. She needed the surgery after being diagnosed with a complete electrical heart block.

Surgeons at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine on Thursday installed a pacemaker in the 5-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever's heart. She needed the surgery after being diagnosed with a complete electrical heart blockage.

ABC News: Hero Pup Gets Doggie Pacemaker

Technorati Tags: Molly,Medtronic,Pacemaker

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Facebook for Scientists and Researchers...

Nice post and good use of Web 2.0 with this site...I can see this growing as participating increases and it offers a convenient way to share research material...more information and detailed explanation over at ScienceRoll.....BD 

Launching this Friday, May 23, researchgate.net changes the picture by offering international networking technology to scientists of all disciplines. It is the world’s first platform of its kind and features numerous technological highlights that simplify research cooperation. Signing up for the service takes just seconds. Registered users of the free-of-charge platform can present their research work in a personal profile, exchange messages and build groups for peer-to-peer discussions. Search engines allow easy access to specific topics and conversations. Researchers from around the world with similar interests can be immediately identified and contacted.

Facebook for Scientists: Going Live « ScienceRoll

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Icahn reports increased stake in Amylin Pharma

Recently he has been in the news regarding the Microsoft/Yahoo dispute, but he's still in touch with his BioTech business in San Diego, CA...

NEW YORK - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Thursday reported raising his stake in biotech Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and said he is in discussions with management about ways to maximize product sales and development.

According to the filing, Icahn has recently held discussions with the company's management, and plans to have further conversations about ways to enhance shareholder value.

Icahn reports increased stake in Amylin Pharma - News Wires - CNBC.com

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Alvarado Hospital loses dispute with Blue Shield - San Diego

Change of ownership from Tenet made no difference in the eyes of the court..and the hospital has to honor contracted rates throughout the end of the contract and can't charge beyond the rates agreed to with Tenet...BD 

Alvarado Hospital in San Diego has lost its court battle over a contract dispute with Blue Shield of California, demonstrating how challenging it can be for stand-alone hospitals to demand higher prices for their services.

The ruling clears the way for Blue Shield members to return to Alvarado Hospital for elective procedures. The contract, which expires at the end of this year, was originally negotiated by Alvarado's previous owner, Tenet Healthcare, one of the nation's largest hospital operators. Alvarado was acquired by a group of investors led by pediatrician brothers Pejman and Pedram Salimpour of Los Angeles.

On Thursday, San Diego Superior Court Judge Richard Strauss said in a ruling from the bench that a 2006 contract remains in place even though ownership of the hospital changed hands on Jan. 1, 2007.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Business -- Alvarado Hospital loses dispute with Blue Shield

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Pay us for reading these new PHRs, say internists

This article makes some very good points for compensation...with the adding of personal health record information, there will be more for the physician to sort through, although very helpful, it will require additional time to incorporate the patient supplied information into the electronic health record in a method to where it can be referenced and utilized...as it stand now it is another administrative function without compensation...BD 

Dealing with a patient’s PHR is a good example. To be sure, it may contain valuable information that belongs in the medical record maintained by the doctor, but the doctor needs to carefully review the PHR beforehand to spot any erroneous information. Responding to the new data—maybe the doctor should rethink the medications he’s prescribed—is more work. The ACP recommends that third-party payers reimburse doctors for all this 

Payers also should pay physicians for taking the time to analyze print-outs of Internet health information that patients bring with them to the exam room, according to the ACP position paper. Likewise, the ACP supports reimbursement for online communication between doctor and patient.

Personal Health Records: Pay us for reading these new PHRs, say internists - - Medical Economics

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Celebrex vs. Euflexxa

Worth looking at if you have knee pain...it is not a pill but rather an injection administered by a physician....BD 

More than 10 million Americans have osteoarthritis of the knee; it’s one of the most common forms of arthritis. Until recently, the most patients could hope for was to manage the pain and inflammation with drugs ranging from (on the mild end) acetaminophen up to (on the severe end) Celebrex. With Celebrex, of course, patients also had to weigh the benefits vs. the well-publicized risks.

In December 2004, the FDA approved Euflexxa as a new treatment for knee osteoarthritis. Produced by Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Euflexxa is a hyaluronic acid (HA) derivative that is injected into the knee; it works by increasing the ability of the fluid within the joint to act as a lubricant and shock absorber. HA is a natural substance found in healthy knee joints. Studies consistently have shown the treatment’s effectiveness.

Celebrex vs. Euflexxa | The eDrugSearch Blog

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Cook Medical Announces FDA 510(k) Clearance Of Evolution(R) Controlled Release Esophageal Stent System

Instead of having a tube this would allow a person to eat in a normal fashion....BD

At the Digestive Disease Week Conference, Cook Medical announced that it has been granted 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use of the Evolution® Controlled Release Esophageal Stent System. Designed to improve the quality of life for patients with esophageal cancer, Evolution employs the first and only stent delivery system that enables deployment and recapturability of the stent with unprecedented precision. The ability to place the stent precisely the very first time may reduce the need for repeat procedures.

It is also the only esophageal stent with an internal and external silicone coating, designed to resist tumor ingrowth into the stent and enhances the patients' ability to swallow food normally instead of eating through a tube.

Cook Medical Announces FDA 510(k) Clearance Of Evolution(R) Controlled Release Esophageal Stent System

Technorati Tags: Cook Medical,Stent,FDA,healthcare

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L.A. Care to offer incentives for E-Prescribing - Los Angeles

A minimum of 80 prescriptions is required to qualify for incentives...there's also a PDA version for wireless use...working with partnerships with RelayHealth, and SureScripts...L.A. Care has more than 750,000 enrolled members...ZixCorp also offered a mail encryption service....BD 

DALLAS, May 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Zix Corporation (ZixCorp(R)), (Nasdaq: ZIXI), the leader in hosted services for email encryption and e-prescribing, today announced that L.A. Care, the nation's largest public health plan, will be offering the Company's PocketScript(R) e-Prescribing Service through its new Health I.T. Incentive Program. ZixCorp is one of several vendors that will be available through the program.

L.A. Care launched the Health I.T. Incentive Program in October 2007 as an addition to its Rewarding Results physician incentive program. The Health I.T. Incentive Program runs for one year only and will reward physicians for adoption and sustained utilization of healthcare technology, including e-prescribing. The L.A. Care Program reimburses eligible physicians up to $3,000 for e-Prescribing. Physicians must write a minimum of 80 electronic prescriptions per month for three consecutive months to qualify for reimbursement.

--ZixCorp | News Release--

Technorati Tags: e-Prescriptions,Healthcare,HMO,Physicians

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Experimental Drug May Help Multiple Sclerosis Patients Walk

If the clinical studies go according to plan, Fampridine could be submitted to the FDA for approval at the beginning of next year...so far it is helping those with MS walk better and slows down the degeneration process....BD 

While there’s no cure for MS, the treatment options have grown in the last decade or so, with the approval of drugs including Avonex from Biogen Idec, Tysabri from Biogen and Elan, and Copaxone from Teva.

More MS drugs are on the horizon, with some taking new tacks on the disease. Ron Cohen, CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, talked with the Health Blog about the landscape for MS treatment and the prospects for Fampridine-SR, a medicine his company licensed from Elan.

Health Blog : Experimental Drug May Help Multiple Sclerosis Patients Walk

Technorati Tags: FDA,Multiple Sclerosis,healthcare,Clincal Trials

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Deadline Day Comes for the NPI - May 23rd

 Today is the deadline for the NPI for health care claims...BD 

May 23 is the compliance date for the National Provider Identifier to be used exclusively for electronic health care claims under HIPAA. Barring a last minute government decision to extend the deadline, health insurers starting today will reject and return electronic claims that do not include the identifier.

As of May 1, the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System had issued NPIs to 2.55 million providers—1.93 million individual providers and 620,593 provider organizations, according to figures from Fox Systems Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz., the NPI enumerator. That figure suggests nearly all providers who bill for health care services have an NPI, as CMS previously estimated nearly 2.3 million identifiers were needed.

If there is an uproar of protest across the industry--which would start on May 27 as claims generated over the Memorial Day holiday weekend are denied--it is possible that CMS would relax the deadline, Booz notes. “But if I were a health care provider, I wouldn’t count on it.”

Deadline Day Comes for the NPI

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Crime scene chemical could make hospitals cleaner

When used in dialysis machines, this could show blood traces that are not seen by the naked eye...BD 

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The use of Luminol, a bioluminescent chemical used in crime investigations to detect trace amounts of blood, might improve infection control in hospitals, Dutch researchers report.

In a study reported in the Journal of Hospital Infection, Dr. P. W. M. Bergervoet and colleagues, from Deventer Ziekenhuis, describe the use of Luminol in their dialysis units, noting that transmission of hepatitis C often occurs in this setting and may be related to blood contamination of the hospital environment.

Crime scene chemical could make hospitals cleaner - Yahoo! News

Technorati Tags: hospital,luminol,healthcare

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The Progressive Blockbuster - Personalized Medicine...

This article does a very good job in explaining the next wave in pharmaceuticals...everyone knows what the "Blockbuster Drug" is...but this was even a new term for me...the new model...and returning R and D back to the scientists...(per Garnier)...almost like what could be considered "baby steps" in layman's terms...BD 

"Garnier's next idea is what he calls "progressive blockbuster." Blockbuster status is the goal that every pharma is seeking yet is becoming more elusive as we enter the smaller patient populations of the personalized medicine era. Enter the progressive blockbuster."

"This is a drug that has been tested on a carefully selected sub-group of patients which have been shown to benefit and have low side-effects from the drug. The FDA would approve the drug only for patients in this specific sub-group. Once the drug has been approved and marketed to this sub-group, additional sub-groups can be added one by one as they show good results and safety. Eventually you will be marketing to enough sub-groups to make it a blockbuster. Voilà: the progressive blockbuster."

Mind to Market: The Progressive Blockbuster

del.icio.us Tags: Progressive Blobkbuster,FDA,Pharma,Research,Garnier

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Fast-Tracking Cancer Drugs (CBS News)

CBS is doing a special report this week on drugs for cancer.  This video has an interview with the Head of Oncology from the FDA and what their process is to approve drugs for cancer....and an interview with one of the Biotech companies who make the drugs explains that the US requires a whole new clinical trial process of 5 years, even though Russia has already done the 5 year study and has approved the drug...makes sense to hopefully work together with such vital information...as the company states it takes over 1 billion dollars to bring a new cancer drug to market and they can't afford it...and then the story of the woman who started her own Bio-Tech company, driven by her own case of rare cancer...BD 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBTktmYmXBk&eurl=http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/05/progress-in-can.html 

del.icio.us Tags: Cancer research,Biotech,Research,FDA,Oncology

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"Crystal Ball" Personal Genomics Contest

Read more about the contest at the link...software used for the contest is free for personal use, but unless you have a basic understanding about DNA...pass on it...but the premise of the contest is very interesting whereby individuals were given the genetics and had to create a "real role model" person, in other spell out what the person would look like, diseases, etc.  Now the page that describes the fictional person is easy enough for anyone to see, so take a look and see what was derived from the DNA given...by the way if you are a regular reader of this blog and a couple others, there's a public profile on the page of one of the sites I link to....anyway it's pretty amazing what was determined from the DNA...blue eyes...can digest milk...dyslexia which she had overcome...stroke risk...and she could go blind as she ages...BD

Bethesda, MD (PRWEB) May 22, 2008 -- Mike Cariaso's use of the program 'Promethease' to analyze an individual's DNA was deemed best by 23andMe, a personal genomics company that recently held a "Describe Lilly  Mendel" contest. The challenge was to describe Lilly Mendel - a fictitious name for a real person - based only on the genetic information determined by 23andMe.  Describe a real woman's looks, likes and health issues based only on her DNA. Mike Cariaso used Promethease software plus information from SNPedia about DNA variations known as SNPs (both freely available to individuals) to do just that and won a contest held by the personal genomics company 23andMe.

Promethease Wins 23andMe "Crystal Ball" Personal Genomics Contest

del.icio.us Tags: Genomics,DNA,Personal Genomics,DNA Contest,SNPedia

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Scripps, UCSD hit with fines for errors

2 San Diego hospitals were also cited this week...Scripps stated they would appeal...BD 

Two Scripps hospitals in La Jolla and both campuses of UCSD Medical Center are among 13 hospitals statewide that recently received the maximum fine for critical lapses in patient care, California health officials announced yesterday.

Scripps Memorial has received three penalties since the law took effect. Only one other hospital in California – Kindred in Modesto – has logged that many.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Health -- Scripps, UCSD hit with fines for errors

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Personalized medicine for quicker cures, the view from the CEO of Cell Therapeutics...

A view of personalized medicine from the CEO point of view....BD 

"At my company, Cell Therapeutics Inc., one of our subsidiaries, Systems Medicine, is examining the function of genes in a tumor through a process called genetic profiling. SM examines about 30,000 relevant genes from tumor cells and tests them to determine which gene or genes make the tumor susceptible to the effects of different cancer drugs. Using that technique, we can identify which cancers are sensitive to which drugs. It is a fundamental shift in approaching the dilemma of which is the right drug for the right patient while exposing the least number of patients to a drug's severe side effects.

Adoption of personalized medicine will mean that patients will get quicker access to the newest cancer therapies. The current time and cost of drug development is about 16 years and $1.7 billion. Cancer drug development is actually the least-efficient in all of medicine. Genetic profiling could shorten clinical development time and costs because only those patients likely to benefit will be enrolled in clinical trials, making it easier for regulators to make safety and efficacy decisions more quickly."

Personalized medicine for quicker cures

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CBO Questions I.T. Savings - They just don't get it...

What happened to better health care?  Most of the physicians and clinicians that I know are still in pursuit of providing better documented and standards of health care...and that entails many entities...but again in previous posts there have been areas where many members are "uncomfortable" with discussing technology...and just recently Bill Gates testified in front of Congress talking about more education needed for the field of technology and this could start right with members of Congress...and one more item worth mentioning is the cost for the physician on medical records...yes they do benefit by having all the information together for better health care, ask any physician using an EMR or EHR on the value of better patient care, but the cost for many is escalating and someone needs to help in this area so they can have the resources needed...instead of cutting their compensation...so this is indeed one very disappointing report and sadly tells the story of where the focus is....cost...not better healthcare as nobody wants to pay the bill today. 

The system is broken and we need a new pool to generate money to cover the cost.  A federal sales tax of a couple pennies might do the trick in creating a new pool of revenue large enough so everyone contributes and everyone could get paid.  There doesn't appear to be any real source of revenue today that is large enough to cover health care.  We need drugs, hospitals, doctors, technology, etc. and it's time to find and create a new pool of revenue to substantiate and take care of the citizens of the US instead of what is happening today.  BD 

A report from the Congressional Budget Office casts doubt on previous studies of substantial cost savings from widespread use of health information technology, particularly electronic health records. The report could influence prospects for congressional approval of I.T. legislation.

The CBO report takes issue with previous studies--particularly those from the RAND Corporation and the Center for Information Technology Leadership--that forecast huge financial savings if providers widely adopted I.T. and used it appropriately.

The report also contends that while large delivery systems may recognize savings from electronic health records, other providers may not similarly benefit. “Office-based physicians in particular may see no benefit if they purchase such a product--and may even suffer financial harm. Even though the use of health I.T. could generate cost savings for the health system at large that might offset the EHR’s cost, many physicians might not be able to reduce their office expenses or increase their revenue sufficiently to pay for it.”

CBO Questions I.T. Savings

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Monitors urged for all with high blood pressure

The next question is what kind of monitor...one that you have to remember to take out and take your blood pressure....or one of the new wireless devices that uses the blue tooth in your phone to transmit...digital or non-digital tracking...and will it all soon be closer to digital soon???   How much technology does your physician use is another good question, does he/she support digital monitoring yet?  It's all a personal decision, at least for now...BD 

Everyone with high blood pressure — some 72 million Americans — should own a home monitor and do regular pressure checks, the American Heart Association and other groups urged Thursday in an unprecedented endorsement of a medical device for consumers.

High blood pressure is a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes and death. Having it checked a few times a year in a doctor's office or at the drugstore is not enough to keep tabs on it, and regular home monitoring is more accurate, the new advice says.

Monitors urged for all with high blood pressure - Yahoo! News

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FDA to have access to CMS Medicare Data Base...and other government agencies as well in time...

A couple weeks ago I had a couple posts referencing the partner ship with Anthem Blue Cross with utilizing their data bases for such a project as well...The new FDA white paper, titled "The Sentinel Initiative -- A National Strategy for Monitoring Medical Product Safety," ...totally amazing now that the FDA is coming of age with technology when not but a few months ago some of the top researchers in the agency didn't even own a computer! Welcome to the 20th century....a little bit of technology will go a long way with accessing and analyzing the information needed...this is the big grand daddy data base with more information than all the insurers put together.

Next plan of action, get some security vendors lined up since there will be a enormous amount of exposure of what has been locked up as Pandora's box for years....and that should be an under statement.  This does not eliminate clinical trials by any means though, but should serve to compliment data already being gathered...and what is the next roller coaster...personalized medicine...that will present another new frontier in the data analytical game...HL7 for genomics...will be a whole new data base to add in to the process soon as testing will continue to grow...BD 

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today announced efforts underway at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that will complement each other to improve patient safety and the quality of medical care.

Medicare drug claims will be linked to other Medicare information on patient care, such as hospitalizations and physician visits, and made available to other federal agencies, state Medicaid programs, researchers, and beneficiaries for their personal health records.

"With approximately 1 billion claims per year, the Medicare Part D database is unprecedented in size and scope and will be a valuable resource for patient safety analyses that will benefit not only Medicare beneficiaries but the entire nation."

"This initiative will tremendously increase the FDA's capacity to monitor the use of medical products on the market," Secretary Leavitt said. "We are moving from reactive dependence on voluntary reporting of safety concerns -- to proactive surveillance of medical products on the market. In addition, Medicare data on prescription drug use will be available to help government agencies and academic researchers improve the safety, quality and efficiency of health care services."

In a white paper released by the FDA today, the agency describes plans for the Sentinel Initiative, which will include the development of a new electronic system that will enable FDA to query a broad array of information to identify possible post-market adverse events. That Sentinel System will be created through public-private partnerships and will capitalize on existing large electronic claims and medical records data sources maintained by private and government entities that agree to participate in this nationwide effort.

New efforts to improve medical products for patient safety

Technorati Tags: FDA,Clinical trials,HL7,Medicare Part D,genomics,data bases,healthcare,security,Health IT

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Windows Presentation Foundation & PowerShell

 Hard Hat Area:  Programmers....Server 2008 tidbit....PowerShell...create some real nice user interfaces...BD 

Welcome to the Week of WPF. During the next 7 days, I’ll help show you how you can use WPF and PowerShell together.

PowerShell could always script almost everything in .NET, but, prior to the recent CTP2 you could not script Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) in PowerShell.

Now you can script everything that WPF can do within PowerShell. This means you can write pretty sleek looking UIs in nice little PowerShell scripts.

Windows PowerShell : WPF & PowerShell – Part 1 ( Hello World & Welcome to the Week of WPF )

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Dispense-A-Pill... One More Pill Dispenser

90 days worth and this one is huge!  More pills and more pill dispensers...and of course the alarms to let you know "It's Pill Time"....BD 

If you're having trouble keeping track of what pill to take and when, you might want to turn your attention to the Dispense-A-Pill. Now look, we know that name isn't exactly pure gold, but when you've got a system that lets you store up to 90 days worth of medication and then automatically doles it out on a pre-programmed schedule -- naming conventions can probably take a backseat. The machine -- designed by Dr. Gazi Abdulhay -- can hold eight different types of medication, and the manufacturers plan to rent the units for less than the cost of an emergency call button. Now, if they can just create a system like this for making us lunch, we'll be all set.

 

Dispense-A-Pill... er, automatically dispenses pills - Engadget

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E-Health 2.0 Is Looking Healthy

Who knows with social networks and the software developing from new applications..."Gene has just posted his ultrasound on the wall"??...probably seeing some of this already to a degree...social networks have a lot of good to them as well, it's just that the bizarre and strange will follow any new technology...and in today's world, some of that is actually becoming useful...BD 

Following hot on the heels of Google’s launch of its healthcare search portal, UK based E-Health-Insider have published ‘Web 2.0 in the Health Sector’, a report that details how the application of web 2.0 technologies is driving far-reaching changes in healthcare systems in the UK, USA and Europe. The company refers to this trend as e-health 2.0.

Internet developments that form a platform for sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia are now set to revolutionize healthcare, says the publisher.

The report argues that e-health 2.0 will first and foremost be consumer-led. E-health 2.0, it says, is already challenging traditional doctor-patient relationships and beginning to place far greater power in the hands of consumers.

E-Health 2.0 Is Looking Healthy

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Medical Horror: Comatose & Forced to Leave

States like Arizona have been very aggressive with enforcing...why is this done...cost...same old thing...nobody wants to pay the bill, or there's no money in the budget to cover....BD

In some cases, the FBI and police, responding to allegations of kidnapping, have been called in to halt such forcible removals, according to patients' lawyers. In one recent case, a sick baby who is a U.S. citizen born to an illegal immigrant was being transferred by helicopter to a waiting air ambulance for a flight to a hospital in Mexico when Tucson police intervened and brought the child back to the hospital.

ABC News: Medical Horror: Comatose & Forced to Leave

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Kaiser Family Foundation creates new online tool that provides latest health policy facts and data

It's wonderful that all this information is out there...only one common problem with all of it...INFORMATION OVERLOAD....are there not several other site just like this out there...maybe the government might decide to create a "Unified Portal"...someday, this is if they can possibly quit spending money on newspapers to print all of this...after all on the computer there's this wonderful little key called a "print" button...so if you really need printed matter, there it is...no offense to this website and and the information it offers by any means...it's just over kill....and too much information causes people to tune out...just the opposite of what we want...who's the next kid on the block next week?  BD 

The Kaiser Family Foundation today launched Kaiser Fast Facts, a new component of its kff.org Web site, featuring QuickTakes and Kaiser Slides - two new tools providing direct access to facts, data and slides about the nation's health care system and programs, in an easy-to-use format.

QuickTakes presents an inventory of facts-at-a-glance providing a concise overview of the health care system, as well as key facts about a wide variety of health policy topics, including: Medicaid, the uninsured, health care costs and insurance, Medicare, public opinion, HIV/AIDS, minority health, women's health policy and the entertainment media and health. These data are compiled from the Foundation's own studies and analyses as well as those from other organizations. Using QuickTakes, Web visitors will find up-to-date health policy statistics that provide an overview of key aspects of the health care system without having to search through various publications. Links to related materials and sources are also provided.

Kaiser Slides allows Web visitors to freely view, download and print hundreds of graphics and tables presenting health policy statistics and trends from studies by Kaiser and others. The slides, which cover a broad range of topics, explain key aspects of health policy issues and can be used by anyone in presentations or as handouts at meetings and events.

Kaiser Family Foundation creates new online tool that provides latest health policy facts and data

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Woman Loses Home Over $68 Dental Bill

We have all heard the stories...now here is a real story with health care at the root of losing a house....unusual story, but goes to show how connected data bases working behind the scenes share and process information, without any attention at the forefront...computers make decisions too based on how the programmers set up the queries and actions to run...this is clearly a story of that nature...one other scary thought...this happens with health care all the time, insurance claims, collections, you name it...accuracy and a human touch should certainly not be out of the picture when needed....BD 

Can you imagine losing your home over a $68 dental bill? That's what happened to one Utah woman.

Sonya Capri Ramos says her Salt Lake City home was sold out from under her in 1996 to pay a collections agency seeking payment for dental work performed on one of Ramos's daughters. And despite the fact that she had made three years of payments on a $51,000 mortgage, the title changed hands for just $1,550 at a sheriff's auction.

But the story doesn't end there: Ramos, 41, said she didn't find out that her home no longer belonged to her until two years after the sale. To date, she hasn't moved out.

ABC News: Woman Loses Home Over $68 Dental Bill

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RTX Healthcare launch Wireless Telehealth Monitor with built-in GSM/GPRS mobile phone technology

Press Release below....through wireless monitoring the information is sent to the physician, hospital, or designated health care office...the machine will ask you if you feel dizzy or lightheaded...after answering a few questions, the device advises that the data has been sent....BD 

RTX Healthcare launch Wireless Telehealth Monitor with built-in GSM/GPRS mobile phone technology
Remote Monitoring of elderly people suffering from CHF, COPD, Diabetes and other chronic diseases now becomes easier and more effective with a new interactive Telehealth Monitor based on GSM/GPRS mobile phone technology.

Denmark, May 19th, 2008 - RTX Healthcare today announced a new member to the family of interactive telehealth monitors, which allows healthcare system integrators and disease management companies to effectively monitor patients at home. The RTX3371 GSM/GPRS Telehealth Monitor collects vital signs wirelessly from external devices and subjective patient information from patient questionnaires and transmits the data directly to the system integrator or disease management company’s own clinical information system. The collected vital signs include weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, peak flow, SpO2, ECG, blood coagulation and others. All external devices are products from major third party medical device manufacturers.

Bjarne Flou, CEO of RTX Healthcare says: “Expanding our product portfolio to include a GSM/GPRS mobile phone technology enabled Telehealth Monitor is a natural next step in the progression of our vision to become the preferred supplier of telehealth equipment. Our Telehealth Monitors are extremely simple and intuitive to use for elderly patients. Furthermore, the flexibility of the device and our business model, where RTX Healthcare sell the RTX3371 Telehealth Monitor for a one-off fee without a proprietary backend, makes our monitors an easy and preferred choice for telehealth providers”. Bjarne Flou continues: “The RTX3371 GSM/GPRS Telehealth Monitor is the second member of a family of telehealth monitors, which also include the RTX3370 monitor with built-in PSTN landline phone modem”.

RTX Healthcare launch Wireless Telehealth Monitor with built-in GSM/GPRS mobile phone technology

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Cancer Patients Can Still Fight - Clinical Trials.gov Website

For a list of trial you can go here, to the ClinicalTrials.gov site....you can also search the site for any other trials listed with the National Institute of Health....BD 

Three weeks ago, 38-year-old Allan Shallenberger from Los Angeles received the same grim diagnosis as Sen. Ted Kennedy: he had the same type of brain tumor that cannot be surgically removed.

"Put up the fight of your life, and if it doesn't work out, hey, well at least you put up the fight," Shallenberger said, describing his predicament.

For Shallenberger and soon, Ted Kennedy, that means radiation -- almost daily -- for six weeks, and chemotherapy in the form of a pill taken once a day.  This is why many patients today take an extra step, enrolling in clinical trials and trying their luck with experimental treatments.

ABC News: Cancer Patients Can Still Fight

Technorati Tags: clinical trials,cancer research,tumors

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Tenet will Offer Online Bill Pay

View and pay with Tenet hospitals....coming soon....BD 

Tenet Healthcare will implement a Web-based bill payment application from NCR Corp., Dayton, Ohio, at its 53 hospitals. The deployment follows a pilot study of the technology the Dallas-based delivery system conducted earlier this year.

The vendor's system enables patients to view their bills, arrange payment plans, select payment options, make payments and inquire about the status of their accounts using a Web portal. It also offers access to a glossary of billing terms and the ability to view frequently asked billing questions. Additionally, the system will soon enable patients to link multiple accounts so they can manage payments for multiple family members.

Tenet will Offer Online Bill Pay

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More patients with drug-coated cardiac stents indicating improved survival

New studies are now showing the benefits...but then we come back to the over all cost as one of the stents coated with drugs costs about $2,000.00 more...great technology news but will someone pay the bill...hopefully decisions can be made quickly....BD 

The more than ten million Americans who’ve received drug-eluting stents to open their blocked coronary arteries have a bright future, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The findings, among the first large follow-up studies to show a clear, lifesaving benefit of drug-eluting stents compared to bare metal stents, will be published in the May 27 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Patients with the drug-coated stents -- designed not only to open blocked coronary arteries but also to chemically inhibit future blockage -- were less apt to die, have heart attacks or require extra stents or bypass surgery in the two years following placement of the stent.
“This might be a hidden nugget of goodness that could not be detected in clinical trials,” says Peter W. Groeneveld, MD, MS, assistant professor in Penn’s Division of General Internal Medicine. “There is a distinct possibility that drug-eluting stents not only reduce the need for future cardiac procedures, but also save lives.”

More patients with drug-coated cardiac stents survive, avoid costly follow-up procedures

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The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)

This is a good thing, and let's hope it has more teeth than HIPAA...and down the road as the legal process continues to grow...what exactly will constitute a genetic test...that needs to be outlines clearly so later a test that an individual thought was a GINA related test is not construed or determined to be a test of another type that does not fall under the law... the standards for what is considered to be a GINA protected test need to be outlined and categorized immediately, otherwise it's just a law without any real offerings or protection for citizens....BD 

On Wednesday, May 21, 2008, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA).  GINA prohibits employers and health insurers from discriminating against persons on the basis of their genetic information.  The measure passed by a vote of 414-1 in the House and 95-0 in the Senate before making its way to the President’s desk. 

The almost-unanimous Congressional support is indicative of the public support—or public fear—behind the measure.  A 2007 survey indicated that 93 percent of Americans oppose employer or insurer access to their genetic test results.  Another survey indicated that 92 percent fear harmful use of their genetic test results by employers or insurers.  GINA is an attempt to put such public fear to rest. Genetic testing is currently available for 1200 diseases, and tests for hundreds of others are currently being developed.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA): A Proposed Answer to Genetic Discrimination | Americans United for Life Blog

Technorati Tags: DNA,GINA,Genomics,medical test

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Medical group sues over doctor ranking

What's the best answer here...have the insurance companies stop rating the doctors...plain and simple...sure there may be some good data here but there's also the other type...insurance is geared to making a profit and the numbers can be presented in a number of ways...it's the same principle as buying a house, if everyone was honest and both parties could trust each other, we would not need escrow companies...in my own personal opinion the rating game by insurers is not doing anyone any good...especially the doctors...get an "escrow" company to handle the data that has no other outside interest and try that route...instead of cherry picking patients and doctors....BD

Saying that insurance companies aren’t being fair to physicians or their patients when they use doctor ranking systems, the Massachusetts Medical Society yesterday took the dramatic step of suing the state agency that purchases health insurance for state employees. The esteemed medical society also named Tufts Health Care and UniCare Life and Insurance Co. in its complaint.

According to the medical society, health insurance companies try to determine how much various physicians cost them by analyzing the type, amount and quality of care these doctors provide.

Medical group sues over doctor ranking - BostonHerald.com

Technorati Tags: health insurance,doctor ratings,healthcare

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Who’s hacking your PACS - About Medical Device Security...

Very good article addressing medical devices and the certification processes...they are not bullet proof as this is work in progress, although we would love nothing better than to have this guarantee, but the fact of the matter is it simply is not there...reality set in...and the device makers are working on getting up to par with having the devices function with  security on a network...thus anymore it's no longer just a device game, it's the entire big picture that needs to be assessed...no longer can they rely on the integrators to do the job 100% with security...team effort...thus every medical device company today might entertain the idea of some additional technology partners...some and many have already ventured in this area...but this will always be work in progress to some extent as long as we live with hackers and the potential for security breaches...but the stakes are much higher today with human lives and not just financial reports relying on this technology...The FDA is certainly no where near the capability of approving a "software patch" to guarantee safety...their focus has been on the medicinal side of things but as times change this is also something else that encroaches into being able to approve for patient safety...technology....pharma, biotech, and technology all need to come together under one common goal....and with the fractured entities and confusion that exists today....it's a challenge and there's no room for blame shifting  as everything that is done today has an audit trail along with a growing demand for transparency...BD 

As is the case with other information systems, medical devices are not expected to be bulletproof to receive approval. “We have to balance the need for security of these devices and network segments against the need for the real-time and free flow of clinical information so clinicians can make clinical decisions,” Richardson said.
To complicate the situation, many medical device manufacturers are not savvy about information assurance and network security. “Historically, medical device manufacturers have not seen themselves as information systems companies,” Richardson said. “Building cybersecurity into their software is new for them. So this has been a learning process for the government and for industry alike.”
Given that history, it is not surprising that manufacturers were initially reluctant to subject their products to the kind of information assurance processes DOD demanded.
“Up until the last few years, it was tough to get vendors to buy into this process,” Wren said. “From their standpoint, DOD was a small fraction of their business. Their commercial customers were not requiring all of this security. Their attitude was, ‘If you don’t want us, go find someone else.’”

On the other hand, medical equipment presents some unique information assurance challenges. “These devices are also subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration,” Wren said. “Because of that, you can’t make changes to systems through patches or otherwise without FDA approval.… If someone puts a patch on a CT scanner, for example, it could change the parameters of how the scanner works and cause injury to the patient. The fix needs to be tested and approved before it is put on the system, and that takes time.”

Who’s hacking your PACS?

Technorati Tags: Medical Devices,PACS,Health IT,FDA,Security,Mobile data

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Pre-Paid, Basic Cell Phones On Decline

This goes back to my series about "Are you still just using your cell phone for phone calls" that I did a while back...with health care there's a need and interest to have more than just a phone...like many of the telemedicine features and wireless monitoring that is becoming front stage with health care...BD

New York, NY (AHN) - Fewer pre-paid and basic cell phones are being sold in the U.S. as a widening adoption of post-paid cellular plans and high-end mobile phones reshape the market, studies said.

Driving the changes is a double-barreled case of a slowing economy and a maturing U.S. wireless market. With more than eight in 10 Americans owning a cell phone, demand is dropping. Bernstein Research found a 23 percent drop in new U.S. cellular subscribers.

Pre-Paid, Basic Cell Phones On Decline | AHN | May 22, 2008

Technorati Tags: Cell Phone,Telemedicine

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Hospitals in L.A., Orange counties are fined for putting patients at risk

More hospitals in southern California cited for not addressing patient issues and some resulted in death.  Modern technology can help track patient issues, but unfortunately with money and funds being scarce these days, much of the needed technology gets put on the back burner, items like devices that lend a helping hand to track patient status, and yet other issues are perhaps due to the increased patient load and hurrying to perform a procedure without checking all the notes ahead of time.  BD 

Thirteen hospitals, including five in Los Angeles and Orange counties, have been fined for placing patients at risk of serious injury or death, California health officials said Wednesday.
Two Los Angeles County public hospitals, Harbor-UCLA and Olive View-UCLA medical centers, received citations. The two, along with County-USC Medical Center, form the backbone of the county's health system.
Also fined were Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center and St. Joseph Hospital of Orange, Orange County's largest hospital.
It was the third time the California Department of Public Health has disciplined hospitals since a state law went into effect in 2007 granting the agency the authority to fine facilities for placing patients in serious jeopardy. Each fine was $25,000

Hospitals in L.A., Orange counties are fined for putting patients at risk - Los Angeles Times

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New Sphere Search Feature Added to the Medical Quack

  There's a new area on the blog to find additional publications and articles related to the story.  By using the Sphere Related Contents link, both blogger and other articles from the web will appear to allow you to read further on the subject or areas that are closely related.  Look for the link at the bottom of the post on the left hand side. 

This is a quick sample of what the pop up window will display.  Bloggers are on the left and links to Forbes, Wall Street Journal, etc. are on the right hand side.  It works pretty well and can save having to navigate or do additional searches. 

If you still want additional information, use the "more>>" button at the bottom and an entire page will open with more resources.  As you can see from the screenshot, there were over 2000 related posts. 

I hope this will add some value and make it easier and quicker to find additional resource information when visiting the Medical Quack and once again I want to thank all the readers for visiting the site!  Keep coming back!  BD 

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The FDA's Cancer Chief Speaks Out

Interview conducted by BusinessWeek magazine...discussing clinical trials, biotechs, and patients...and how it all comes together...what is the relationship of drug companies with the FDA and why do so many cancer drugs appear to fail are the topics covered...BD 

Dr. Richard Pazdur, 55, is one of the most powerful men in medicine. An oncologist by training, he has overseen the U.S. Food & Drug  Administration's cancer drug division since 1999, and in 2005 was named director of the FDA's newly created Office of Oncologic Drugs, giving him authority over the largest area of drug development. Consequently, Pazdur is a lightning rod for both criticism and praise in the cancer community every time a drug is approved or turned down.

"Drug companies are very good at developing drugs. We're asking them to do something different here, which is to develop a better understanding of the disease. Traditionally that has not been their major goal. But what we're looking at is a shift in the paradigm, an understanding of the disease process and how the drug works in relationship to that progress.

We have to have proof that a drug works. Its not: "Let's have a debate about whether the drug works." It's not: "Might the drug work?" The onus is on the sponsor to demonstrate that the drug works."

The FDA's Cancer Chief Speaks Out

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Family Physicians Issue California Health Care Report

 “The California Academy of Family Physicians supports comprehensive health care reform, universal health coverage, a move to the patient-centered medical home as the model for delivering and coordinating care, and an end to the primary care physician shortage,” Dr. Luther said....if you are in family practice in California...good resource page and there's also a link to Facebook where the group is also represented....BD

The report, Strong Medicine: Family Medicine’s Fix for California’s Fractured Health Care System, brings together current academic research on the problems facing the most populous state in the nation and outlines solutions proposed by experts nationwide.

“Although California spends more than $170 billion each year on health care, the health status of our residents ranks only 23^rd among U.S. states,” said Jeffrey Luther, MD, president of the 7,000-member California Academy of Family Physicians. “This is shameful in our state, the eighth largest economy in the world. Economically we’re larger than most countries – surely we can deliver higher quality health care to the people of California.”

Current statistics on health care disparities by race, rates of uninsured residents, the frayed ‘safety net’ that leaves people living in poverty without adequate access to health care, escalating health care costs, the promising model of the patient-centered medical home, and other topics underscore the urgent need for health care reform and universal coverage in California.

Family Physicians Issue California Health Care Report

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