A Hospital Admitting Machine – And You Thought Kiosks Were State of the Art

This is a video from an embedded transistor company, Freescale that has a proto type of what this would look like and perhaps not that far out of the picture with the way technology is moving today. 

Freescale is the semi conductor portion of the business, in other words the brain and the sensor controls uses on devices.  This is interesting to see this concept and who knows when this may show up in the ER room.    

 

The press release states the process takes 7 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The information goes right into the electronic medical records system too.  BD

Press Release:

GUADALAJARA, Mexico--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the population continues to age and medical monitoring becomes more integrated into everyday living, healthcare professionals are constantly striving to find new ways to monitor patients with improved accuracy, speed and end-user convenience. Taking an active part in this initiative, Freescale Semiconductor, partnering with Pounce Consulting, developed a portable, easy-to-use telemonitoring reference design, which allows patients and physicians to run routine health screenings at home or remotely. Grant funding for the reference design came from the Jalisco State Secretariat of Economic Development and the National Council of Science and Technology.

“Globally, people are living longer and innovation like this from Freescale is going to be necessary to give people the proper level of care without increasing cost.”

Dubbed the Intelligent Hospital kiosk, this is a prime example of Freescale’s efforts to help improve patient care and lower health care costs by driving innovation and enabling medical device manufacturers to leverage the latest technology available. Patients can use the kiosk as a monitor at home to send their personal vital signs and medical tests remotely to a healthcare provider in order to proactively monitor and prevent acute complications of chronic degenerative diseases. In addition, the kiosk can be made available in a public location for individuals to perform various medical tests and transmit data to a hospital.

The recently announced Flexis MM family drives nine different medical devices on the reference design, reducing analog costs and noise interference. The devices include: a weight scale, an ultrasonic height sensor, a thermometer, a blood pressure monitor, a heart rate monitor, a one-lead electrocardiography EKG, a pulse oximeter, a blood glucose meter and a spirometer to measure lung volumes and air flow. The kiosk features a touch-sensing interface to toggle between different modes of operation which creates a cutting edge user experience while leaving the contact surfaces smooth for easy cleaning and disinfecting. A magnetic card reader identifies patient data which is transmitted via USB or Zigbee to a PC or a server where an electronic medical record (EMR) can be stored.

In a recent test using the Intelligent Hospital kiosk, a physician ran the full screening in an average time of seven minutes per patient for a total of 67 patients, while diagnosing five health conditions that were not detected in an initial screening.

“It’s great to see technology companies like Freescale using their innovative products to solve real issues within the context of healthcare,” said Alonso Ulloa Velez, director of the Economic Secretariat for Economic Affairs for the state of Jalisco. “Globally, people are living longer and innovation like this from Freescale is going to be necessary to give people the proper level of care without increasing cost.”

“By integrating common medical monitoring devices with medical grade connectivity and IT systems, we believe we can help lower the cost and improve patient health screenings to reduce major health complications,” said Dr. José Fernández Villaseñor, physician, surgeon and electrical engineer for Freescale Semiconductor. “Freescale’s new Flexis MM family is the foundation of the Intelligent Hospital demo and can speed delivery of patient diagnostics to a hospital or healthcare provider.”

Utilizing its own Tower Design System to develop the kiosk, Freescale also partnered with Pounce Consulting, an information technology services firm that provide OEMs with a customizable platform to develop their own medical equipment. Freescale also used touch sensors to help reduce costs and increase mechanical design flexibility.

Intelligent Hospital demo at Freescale Technology Forum

Freescale will demonstrate the Intelligent Hospital kiosk at the upcoming Freescale Technology Forum, June 21-24 in Orlando, Fla., along with other medical reference designs for motion sensing control and health and fitness activity monitoring.

Freescale medical applications

Freescale offers medical solutions leveraging our product expertise in microcontrollers, sensors, analog and wireless technology for home portable medical devices, diagnostic and therapy devices and medical imaging devices. Freescale is dedicated to helping patients live a better life by driving innovation and enabling medical device manufacturers to leverage the latest technology available. Visit http://www.freescale.com/medical.

About Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations around the world. www.freescale.com.

Technorati Tags: Pounce, Freescale, medical devices, hospital admissions, healthcare technology, embedded, transistors, semoconductors, hospital, ER room

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HHS Committee Urges Genetics Education Effort – Whoa Slow Down a Bit – How Many More Carts Are You Going To Place In Front of That Horse (aka the MD)

Education is not at all a bad idea but have the folks at HHS look at what they are immersing doctors with in such a short amount of time? Of course none of the committees that recommend and devise all of these reports are the ones responsible for using them so it’s a bit of a “fantasy world” existence.   Getting genetic information to physicians is not a bad idea at all but if we had some “hybrid” personalities that had training and expertise in more than one area at a time perhaps some of this would mesh better at the creation level.  

Personal Health Records (PHR), I don’t do technology said the CEO, “it’s for those guys over there”

Don’t forget we have patients too exploring this area and they need help and guidance too and current news articles show what a very slop adaptation of personal health records and other health items have.  What do you expect of doctors and patients at this accelerated level?  Is there not anyone around of a “hybrid” level of expertise than can bring some of this back down to earth? 

One Hell of a Training Program Needed – The Bottom Line to Success in Health IT

What it takes for this type of knowledge to permeate is to spend time with physicians in the field and watch their daily work flows, and I don’t mean at the few high tech offices and hospitals that are well along their way, it’s the other folks you need to bring up to par and again with lack of anyone in leadership with any “hybrid” input, let alone their own participation, this is what we get, more stuff “for those guys over there”.  This is common sense but we need committees now to tell us this?  Again, if you don’t get out and spend time with your sleeves rolled up and participate yourself, this is what we end up with and no wonder doctors and patients are frustrated.  We have no coordination and not enough Health IT implementation individuals at the top. 

One other item to keep in mind is that training takes time and how much time do doctors have and can some afford to take time away from seeing patients that is producing money that puts food on the table.  The link below shows the person on the street asking about PHRs, and this could have easily been done at high leadership levels and received the same results I feel. 

Do You Know What a PHR is? Heck No, Do I Need to Know - Video worth 1000 Words

Here’s a post from a few days ago that sums it up pretty good and the folks at the top don’t get this at all.  We have no role models available and the same old attitude of “its for those guys over there”. 

HHS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government

Now to make this point further, I looked around the web and do you think I could find a picture with Kathleen Sebelius with a computer – not at all.  I looked and couldn’t even find a picture with her with a cell phone!   Does she use technology?  Heck we can’t even get the Medicare PHR program off the ground as everyone sits and talks about it and does little except throw stimulus money around that people are having a hard time understanding how to get it. 

Tell this young doctor in this video she needs genetic training!  HHS is completely out of touch with the real world.  Actually this video is a scene from a new documentary called “The Vanishing Oath” and I have watched the trailers and have not seen the entire movie myself but will, but just the clips make a big enough impact and hopefully show everyone what the reality is for doctors out there today.   When the doctor gets done with her part time job she has at Blockbuster (so she can have her own health insurance) you think there’s time for genetic training dumped on top of an already exhaustive schedule. 

Perhaps soon HHS will learn the act of balance here and perhaps they might get lucky enough to find some valuable “hybrid” individuals to help us out as the current plan overall is going nowhere in a hurry and I attribute this largely to a huge gap of non participants and lack of participation on their own part, and if they did a little bit of that, heck we could have less committees and save a ton of time and money too. People at top levels that live in “tech denial” and that don’t participate are deadly to the rest of us with a daily dose of “its for those guys over there” and “this is good for you” and “this will help you”. 

As transparency moves forward everyone is beginning to not only recognize this but it is creating an insurmountable era of resentment too.  BD

The Vanishing Oath (excerpt) from Lisa Molomot on Vimeo.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Advances in genomics and personalized medicine are moving genetic tests into doctors' practices and patients' lives, but steps should be taken to keep healthcare professionals, doctors, and consumers educated and prepared to understand the results of these tests, according to a new report from a US Department of Health and Human Services' committee.

The Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society has issued a new draft report with proposals aimed at enhancing genomic medicine education and training for doctors and patients.
The report offers proposals concerning a number of issues, including a workshop that would develop ways to integrate genetics into clinical care; development of new training and teaching models; using family health histories in new ways; and proposing reimbursement for the time healthcare providers spend with patients discussing genetic test results and collecting family histories.

First, the task force has recommended that HHS convene a workshop to identify innovative education and training approaches to integrate genetics and genomics into clinical care. The workshop would aim to identify new education and training guidelines, find new funding streams to pay for new initiatives, plan to enhance the content of genetics and personalized medicine education, offer ideas for developing new and relevant educational standards, consider appointing an ongoing advisory panel, and develop a plan to monitor the outcome of its efforts.

HHS Committee Urges Genetics Education Effort | GenomeWeb Daily News | GenomeWeb

Technorati Tags: HHS, Health insurance, PHR, leadership, role models, healthcare reform, gentics, education, MDs, training, fantasy, hybrid, technology, tech denial

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HHS deadline for Medical Loss Ratio Plan Is Missed by Insurance Regulators – Not Done With the Algorithms Yet?

This should come as no surprise as insurers have to investigate fully and take advantage of all their business intelligence software for guidance here as this will impact investor relations and the what they can predict to shareholders in the way of dividends.  Perhaps the HHS requirements here didn’t allow for this.  I would think that those with experience with working with health insurers would be fully aware of how this process works.  We read about Blue Cross in the news recently changing their accounting assignments to place more into the “service” and “claim” areas than what they had deemed appropriate in the past – they need time to run those cost algorithms.  United Healthcare is right on top of this and notified shareholders that their dividends would be paid more frequently so you can see this takes time and of course they also did not want to lose investors with all of this being in the news. 

UnitedHealth To Pay Out Higher and More Frequent Dividends to Share Holders, No Caps on Earnings for Executives or What Is Spent on Lobbying Says the Board

We also had Blue Cross in the news of late adjusting their algorithms to determine how they could work their numbers and could some premium payments possibly go towards VC ventures.

Health Insurance Medical Loss Ratios – How Will The Definitions Between Healthcare, Other Administrative Costs and Profits Be Spelled Out – May Need Some Algorithms to Figure It Out

Perhaps HHS was maybe not aware of all the data functionality here that insurers have to analyze (what they do best) in order to comply within this time frame, as the investor relationships have to come first by law.  Oh the complications of Health IT today and how it impacts deadlines imposed and makes things complicated perhaps for those who are on a non participant level at times.  It affect everything and we are finding other examples too of deadlines not being met, again technology and the algorithms for decisions impact all, and why it is important today to have leaders with some Health IT knowledge and participation.  BD 

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) submitted a letter June 1 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) saying it was delaying its report on how health insurers should calculate their medical loss ratios.

The NAIC was asked by HHS to offer guidance on how to determine if insurers are meeting new health care reform requirements for medical loss ratios. The NAIC originally had until Dec. 31 to complete its work, but then was told to complete it by June 1 to ensure federal regulators had time to implement the rules, which take effect in 2011.

Last month, the NAIC said just 27 states had responded to its request for information on state MLRs. The organization cited time constraints for the limited response.

The federal health insurance reform law requires insurers to meet minimum medical loss ratios — the percentage of premiums collected by insurers actually spent on care that is not administrative costs or profits.

Cline called the initiative a “top priority” for the NAIC, which will determine how expenses paid by insurers such as technology costs, wellness services, taxes and administration costs will affect the new requirements. Companies that do not pay the required proportion of collected premiums back to consumers in the form of claims paid and benefits provided must supply rebates.

Insurance regulators miss HHS deadline for medical loss ratio plan | Insurance & Financial Advisor I IFAwebnews.com

Technorati Tags: health insurance, health reform, United HealthCare, technology, balance, Health IT, Congress, education, algorithms, Venture Capital, business intelligence, Ingenix, Blue Cross

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FDA Loses in Court With Violating First Amendment – Alliance for Natural Health Vs Kathleen Sebelius – Selenium Supplements

The court case stated the FDA violated the first amendment of freedom of speech when censoring truthful scientifically backed claims about how selenium can help reduce the risk of cancer.  We see a lot of advertising where the train runs away with some products and their advertising where there is no scientific backed information and that is a different story.  Many doctors today recommend many different natural supplements in their practices too.

This case focused on one supplement only – selenium.  In humans, selenium is a trace element nutrient found naturally on earth and trace elements in our bodies.  No word yet if the case will be appealed.  BD 

In this court case, ALLIANCE FOR NATURAL HEALTH, et al. vs. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, et al., the judge ruled that the FDA violated the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs by restricting their free speech about the anti-cancer benefits of their selenium supplements.

As explained by health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord who argued the case before the Court:
"The decision... reaffirms that FDA is subject to the strictures of the First Amendment in its evaluation of health claims and it faults FDA for failing to follow that standard, holding its suppression of the selenium-cancer risk reduction claims unconstitutional."

"The Court concludes that the FDA... has not provided any empirical evidence, such as 'studies' or 'anecdotal evidence,' that consumers would be misled by... plaintiffs' claims were they accompanied by qualifications. Moreover, the explanation the FDA offers to demonstrate that plaintiffs' claims are misleading – that the claims leave out pertinent information – is not support for banning the claims entirely..."

FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims

Technorati Tags: FDA, legal case, Sebelius, selenium, supplements, healthcare, natural healthcare

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TwitTag – Fast and Simple Way to Create a “Twitter” Tag – The Same 3D Bar Codes We Want Drug and Device Companies to Use So We Can Scan With Our Cell Phones To Find FDA Recalls

This is pretty neat as someone has worked with the Microsoft Tag API and created a site where it does all the work for you.  I have created my own tags which involves a few steps and they are on the right hand side of the blog under resources to practice with, shoot aim and watch. 

The tag takes you right to my Twitter Feed.  I tried it and it works like a charm.  Follow the Links below to download to your phone and read up and start scanning! 

Microsoft Tag

Microsoft Tag FAQ

If you have not read up on what Tags can do in healthcare, here’s a couple links and at the top of the blog page I have a permanent link to the summary post where it was featured on MSDN and on Microsoft.Gov. 

Microsoft Tags – Microsoft MSDN Posts Ideas from the Medical Quack About Use in Healthcare!

We are even having some discussions about using with the new DEA rules for authenticating physicians for controlled substances and it has been heavily read for the last 3 days! 

RAZCODE (Microsoft Tags) Using Smart Phones to authenticate MDs When e-Prescribing Controlled Substances

We already have a grocery chain kicking the FDA in the “tech fanny” here with being ahead of the game with FDA and other recalls. 

How Does a Grocery Store Chain Kick the FDA, Pharma and Healthcare in the Butt When It Comes to Recalls

Creating a Microsoft Tag of your twitter page is very easy. Enter your twitter handle below and click "Create My Tag".

After the tag has been successfully created, right-click on the image and select "Save Picture As..." option to download the Tag to your computer.

http://twittag.me/CreateTag/Create

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Tags, HealthVault, heatlhcare, technology, medical records, e-prescribing, PHR, EHR, cell phone, Tags, scanning, mobility, health IT, Razcode. Razoron, DEA, prescriptions, authentication, drugs, Health IT, Twitter, FDA, TwitTag

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“The Vanishing Oath” – Documentary About the Diminishing Doctor-Patient Relationships When the Environment Does Not Allow Doctors To Care - Exhaustion As Well As Struggles to Take Care of Themselves Sets In

We all know the focus is to save money, but at what cost, the relationships that we enjoy as people, especially important when we need healing and depend on our doctors to help us.  Granted we have a lot more information online today and should take advantage as patients to be better informed, but what may patients may not see or realize is the push on the other side that affects the doctors in all of this.   

In the clip here the first thing the doctor says she would change would be the “reimbursement and billing” systems used – get rid of billing and coding.  I could not agree with her more on this as I have done and do billing and the average patient has no clue as to what this nightmare is.  Its is the 800# gorilla hiding behind each practice office that everyone tries to keep in the closet for the most part so as not to interfere with the patient experience, but sometimes it does get out and makes things awkward and difficult. 

The one doctor is working in 2 offices and is talking about going to work for Kaiser Permanente and she works part time at Blockbuster to get health insurance herself.  This is a doctor not too long out of residency. 

From the Website:

“Did you know that 60% of doctors today are dissatisfied with their practice of medicine? Our first feature length film is borne out of the dark frustrations of a Boston doctor who refused to ignore that, every day, we are losing good doctors.
Dr. Ryan Flesher’s raw and unscripted look at himself and his own place in medicine provides a unique revelation that our modern day healers have long held silent.
Being a physician today carries a complexity and responsibility, known only to those whom are expected to tend to the ills of society. But when doctors are suffering themselves - who really cares? We are all patients and come the day that we allow for money to supersede humanity, we all become collateral damage.
Dr. Flesher, driven by the altruism that brought him into medicine, with camera in hand, will pull back the curtain. In so doing, he becomes both observer and participant in this unique exploration into the psyche of physicians today.”

The movie has a web site and you can find it here along with a page of several other videos trailers to watch to include one on the fears of malpractice.  I watch a lot of frustration from the doctor’s side and many are not getting a good break today and with technology and other pressures running rampid, especially with insurance companies trying to leave them out of the loop in some areas and telling them how they need to practice medicine, yes the feelings heard here are true.

We have a strange sensation of what we call balance in healthcare today with emerging technologies and how they get implemented.  When the IPad came out some of my fellow bloggers became IPad bloggers for about 2 weeks and it’s good to have them back, and what I am saying here is the obsession to the point of utter distraction and disruption with technology.  I love the new stuff but do keep in mind I have come back to earth after a few minutes.  On the other hand I encounter the tech denial folks who hate everything I represent with technology and hear nothing but complaining and negative comments there, and those are mostly the ones who really don’t like change, so if we can hit somewhere in the middle between compulsive obsession and denial we might be going somewhere.

Also, check out Money Driven Medicine too for another documentary from last year that is excellent and you get to hear the doctors talk there too. 

MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE – The Movie (Official Trailer)

Unfortunately health literacy is not going anywhere fast with efforts as such from HHS being totally out of tune with reform and how they relate to the American Public as the mountains are not coming to Mohamed any time soon and we lack tremendously with most of them displaying any signs of caring as well.  We get get a good show and more technology thrown out there that people don’t know how to use, but that’s about it, and I mention this as their actions and how they perceive solutions is way out of touch as they never roll up their own sleeves today and still prescribe to the paradigm of “its for those guys over there” and those guys are us, the doctors and the patients. 

HHS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government

The government actions of many being non participants just stands to delay progress and continues to indulge the “for profit” algorithmic mechanisms of Wall Street which is lives in their own world of make believe.  With tech denial at such a high rate throughout out leaders, we get the tech bytes and bits dumped on us and leaders  have no clue of the huge impact this is creating for the citizens as technology is throwing us a new left curve every day and they just don’t see it and the best we can hope for is to be lucky enough to get another website or blog that they say “will be good for us” and when the real truth is known, they can’t use the tools on there themselves.  Sad, but this is greatly what is contributing to the strain of the human patient-doctor relationships today.  BD 

The Vanishing Oath (excerpt) from Lisa Molomot on Vimeo.

You can also buy the film on Amazon for $21.99 or use your PayPal account to purchase.  I just came across this today and looks like I need to get a copy to watch myself after viewing the trailers. 

Nancy Pando knew she wanted to make a documentary, she just didn’t know what the film would be about..

“Dr. Flesher turned to me and said, ‘I hate being a doctor.’ He was 35 at the time. All of that education and all of that debt ahead of him and he hated being a doctor,” Pando, a social worker from Boston, said. “I’d never heard any doctor say that so I turned to him and said, there’s the documentary.”

After more than four years of filming, Pando and Flesher’s film, “The Vanishing Oath,” was completed. The movie is about the many obstacles that lie between patients and physicians.

“People often say the doctor kept me waiting, but that’s not the doctor’s fault. It’s all of the obstacles in between. Insurance companies, malpractice insurance, joint commission, it’s all the same bureaucratic machine,” Pando said. “What they’re doing is tying the hands of doctors. Untrained hands are really determining our care.”

The film premiered at Moraine Valley Community College on May 25. Palos Heights physician Dr. John Principe organized its showing.

Since making “The Vanishing Oath” open to the public, online, on May 5, Pando says reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

The Reporter: Filmmaker delves into doctor-patient relations

Technorati Tags: physicians, patients, healthcare, healthcare reform, documentary, medical, medical billing, health insurance, non participants, government, technology, health IT, primary care

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The Wacky World of Prostate Cancer Diagnosing and Prevention In the News– Dogs and Voice Decoding?

First up here we have dogs that are trained to smell urine and in the tests below you can see this was limited to 66 tests and the dog made 3 mistakes, not bad.  This does not mean you can get a dog to replace the standard PSA test though as this is still preliminary work with some kind of progress I think?  The video below goes into other cancers that dogs can check for or I should say are being trained to detect. 

Now a couple weeks ago I did a post about software that decodes human voices to also help determine if a man has prostate cancer, so gee even easier than the dog?  Actually the software is being developed and invested in by venture capitalists to decode your voice to give the caller at the other end you present mental state, great right?  This could perhaps stand some use in areas where call centers are located in countries where English is not the main language? 

Behavioral Software Decodes Human Voices to Identify Person’s Present State Over the Phone – Voice Driven Algorithms for Analysis

As you read further, the software also boasts about the ability to predict prostate cancer too, so what next, forget the visit to the doctor and get all the men in the country on the phone?  Of course not, but a second example of some strange items happening out there with some wacky research.  I also ask what if was a woman on the phone too, would the voice decoder know this? 

“According to Levanon, a person with prostate cancer has a "Grand Canyon" of missing tones that is "catastrophic to the voice."

I could see a call to a tech call center going something like this with transparency and disclosure today:

“Thank you for calling our tech support customer service department today and by law I am requested to inform you that we have also decoded your voice and you may have prostate cancer and I would be happy to send the results to your doctor if you can verify the last 4 digits of your social security number and provide a fax number”…(grin). 

Then, if you believe everything you read today you might be running down to the drug store to buy some products from Bayer – not. 

Bayer Is Sued Over Labeling Stating It Helps Prevent Prostate Cancer – One A Day

These stories are interesting to read, but until you doctor recommends it, I would stay with the standard scientific tests we have today and when you watch the video above the dogs are graduating too up to detecting other forms of cancer.  BD

Man's best friend may cement his position if early results from French researchers can be replicated. A team of researchers from Tenon Hospital in Paris reported Tuesday at a San Francisco meeting of the American Urological Assn. that dogs can be trained to detect the characteristic odor of unique chemicals released into urine by prostate tumors, setting the stage for a new way to identify men who are most at risk from the cancer. If developed, the test might be more effective than the PSA test now used because it would have fewer false positives.

In 66 tests, the dog was correct 63 times. There were three false positives and no false negatives. That is, the dog correctly identified all the specimens from prostate cancer patients, but misidentified three from healthy men.

The whole training process took about a year, Cornu said, and the team is already training other dogs. The researchers are now attempting to identify what specific chemicals the dog is reacting to in hopes of developing an "electronic nose" that wouldn't require treats and potty breaks.

Dogs can potentially sniff out prostate cancer, French researchers say | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times

Technorati Tags: prostate cancer, dogs, American Urilogical Association, urine, PSA Test, chemicals, voice decoder, conversation, call centers

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Family Spends $200,000 To Have Their Entire Genome Mapped

The father says he should not eat fish and both parents learned they have inherited dangers of blot clots.  You can listen to the video and see what they have to say.  The kids seemed to be more impressed with the fact that they may get Alzheimer's disease later in life. 

The family said they received no medical counseling here and are making their own conclusions.  One comment made is that the parents stated they will probably be using more pharmaceuticals, interesting.  If you want to read and see more about how individuals are working with the information, the link below has some videos from George Church and the other first 10 participants to be sequenced and how they are looking at the information they received.  BD

Personal Genome Project – Webisodes on How It All Came Together

 

Entire Family Maps Its Genes - ABC News

Technorati Tags: Sequencing, genomics, healthcare, family, genes, DNA, disease, data, genomes

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Rice Krispies Creates Stir at FTC With Advertising Cognitive And Health Benefits

It appears the FDA is getting some help from the FTC with company advertisements relating to “better health” attributes that are not scientifically proven.  Last year we had the FDA calling Cheerios a drug over their advertising campaign.  As competition gets tougher out there we are seeing people reaching way out beyond normal realms to create a “positive” view of their products, drugs or devices and this is one more. 

General Mills Responds to FDA Stating Study Shows that Cheerios Does Lower Cholesterol

Is there truth in advertising anymore you might want to ask?  Who might be next on the list in the cereal department?  BD  

Kellogg Co. agreed to expanded advertising restrictions after the Federal Trade Commission charged it with making questionable health claims about its Rice Krispies cereals.

The expanded agreement prohibits Kellogg from making any claims of health benefits of any food unless backed by scientific evidence, according to the FTC, in a statement released Thursday.

The agreement builds on an April 2009 settlement between the FTC and Kellogg involving health claims about its Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal.

In that matter, the company was barred from claiming its Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal provided cognitive and health benefits. The FTC said Kellogg falsely asserted in advertisements the cereal was "clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20%."

FTC Objects to Kellogg's Rice Krispies Health Claim - WSJ.com

Technorati Tags: FTC, FDA, cereal, advertising, healthcare, Kellogg, Miniwheats, nutrition, Rice Krispies

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Hospitals Fined in California Over Not Reporting Errors – One Negotiated the Amount and Has Other Financial Issues At Stake

Currently recent figures are showing 55% of US hospitals are operating in the red, so additional fines don’t help matters much but errors do need to be addressed.  The hospital mentioned here from the post at HealthLeaders Media, is also in the process of suing Citigroup as well, obviously financial woes are right up there with top concerns.  

Tri-City Medical Center Suing Citigroup – Alleging Banking Misled Hospital Executives with Investments

The hospital is not balking over the fact that they were fined, but again we enter into combined areas of interest when money issues are at hand and the hospital did negotiate reduced fines in this case.  BD  

However, the CEO of Tri-City Medical Center, a 397-bed facility in San Diego County, did discuss its more than $130,000 in fines. CEO Larry Anderson explains that when he took over in January 2009, "it became apparent to me that there were matters that should have been reported that had not been. With an abundance of caution, I decided to self-report either that was reportable or questionably reportable." He says he notified the state about three of the incidents that had each occurred nearly a year earlier.

He says he thought that because Tri-City was self-reporting these mistakes, "the state would work with us, which they eventually did to some extent."

But the amounts added up. "When you have something you hadn't reported for a year, that adds up quickly," he says. For those three penalties, the fine came in at $43,800, $46,000 and $32,700. Another two mistakes that weren't promptly reported were discovered by state officials, and amounted to fines of $1,300 and $7,000.

Hospitals Fined More than $1M For Failure to Report Adverse Events

Technorati Tags: Citigroup, algorithms, financing, disclosure, bonds, risks, auctions, hospitals, Tri-City Medical, fines

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"Reach for the Top" Program Combines Prototype from Ingenix (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of United Healthcare) for Public/Private Community Health Data on HHS.Gov Site

The full press release from HHS can be read here.  A while back when reporting on the United campaign for doctors to enroll in their network I saw almost the same thing over a year ago with using the community numbers to try to show and help doctors with statistics to show them how they ranked in their communities against others.  I don’t know how far this has gone as enrolling and contracting seemed to drop their rates of compensation with the contract, which I was told from a couple doctors I spoke with.  The community performance was about the last thing on their minds. 

HHS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government

I spent about 5 minutes today looking at the neat heat map put out my Bing which was cool, but will probably never go there again to the Bing page for that information, but I will go back for the telescope, and that I am guessing is the same sentiment you will hear from others.  In listening to the video below I found it interesting to hear the enthusiasm of the presenter for something that will mean little or nothing to the average individual and again we still have no role models that show any thing on the web about how Health IT is helping them, but come on, they just present the information that they want “those guys over there” to use – not going to happen as nobody cares as there are too many other immediate stressful items in life impacting lives. 

This is all nice but in reality, who cares other than looking up information for either stimulus money or needing data for reports. For the average citizen who has little healthcare literacy, this means very little and we still have no role models.  Nice graphs, Twitter involvement, but people have more interest in their own care and overall could care less about such statistics. 

Biden Says Savings with Electronic Records are Big – Is He an ePatient? Let’s Get Personal Here As That is What We Want to Hear, Not the Same Old News of How Health IT Saves Money

Personally it’s hard for me to get excited about software from a company that underpaid physicians and patients for 15 years by using corrupted algorithms and is now paying back claims, not to mention all the money they made from the other insurance companies and the money they make from selling our medication data.  HHS in my opinion might think about how and who they select as partners.   One more new lawsuit filed last week that is a class action involving 3rd parties this time with outpatient facilities.  The link below has some additional information on past and current legal lawsuits. 

Outpatient Surgery Centers File Class Action Lawsuit Against UnitedHealth and Ingenix for Underpayments

One other recent action is the acquisition by Ingenix of the China Gateway company that already has ties to communication with the FDA, what is the purpose here I ask?  Is it to bring more drugs and medical devices from China to keep the claim payments down versus our US companies?  It’s another subsidiary of United Healthcare 2 steps down the ladder with I3 being a subsidiary of Ingenix.

UnitedHealth subsidiary (Ingenix Subsidiary I3) Acquires ChinaGate – Working to Sell Chinese Products Globally

I just look at companies as an entire entity and how they are combining all their different companies to work together, thus questions arise in my mind as to how all of this is going to play out and where do the resources and companies come into play here with “Reaching for the Top”. 

There’s a lot of power in those algorithms and we need to look down the road to see where all the pieces fall into place.  Community performance will take a back seat in anyone’s interest to the continued demise of the US economy and loss of jobs and outsourced services overseas.  BD

Reach for the Top is in initial planning stages with support from Ingenix and IHI. It is designed to inspire improvements across three dimensions of care: the health of the population, the individual experience of care, and the cost of care -- what IHI calls the Triple Aim(TM). Reach for the Top will first enable communities to access information from a variety of sources, including commercial and government data, to gain an understanding of their current status by comparison in each of the three dimensions. Communities will then be able to monitor their improvement as they "Reach for the Top" on each metric, comparing results, seeking top performers and learning from best practices.

The Reach for the Top prototype demonstrated today uses information from Ingenix, IHI, the Dartmouth Atlas, County Health Rankings, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to create indices and dashboards that enable communities to see how their performance ranks versus the top 10th percentile of communities in measures of community health -- such as birth weight, hospital admissions and re-admissions, emergency room visits, management of chronic conditions, patient-reported quality of life, and years of life lost to death prior to age 75 -- and in measures of cost, such as medical cost per person. Reach for the Top metrics will expand as more data become available. Efforts are currently underway to create a planning committee that will develop a competition for communities and hospitals to "Reach for the Top."

"Reach for the Top" Community Health Initiative to Spark Improvements in Health, Care Delivery and Cost - MarketWatch

Technorati Tags: Ingenix, UnitedHealhtcare, HHS, community health information, NCQA, community health, software, Reach for the Top

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SEC Charged Biotech Executive With Lying About A Test Predicting Down Syndrome

In several appearances she stated the test was 100% accurate on whether or not a fetus would be born with down syndrome.  She knew the truth and still told everyone it was perfect in essence. 

The product never materialized and it misled investors at the same time.  Sometimes when writing this blog I get to the point to where I really have to look at what I receive and determine what is educational and good knowledge versus “marketing” and in this case with the claims about the test, it appears that “marketing” was the key here with overzealous claims.  

I have mentioned this before about some companies that are financed with venture capital funds and get low on cash, mostly in the device area to where they need sales to stay in business before the money runs out and thus you see stronger and more forceful marketing take over at times.  In this case I don’t have any idea of the financials other than the fact that the company is traded on the open market.  BD 

You better watch out, you better not lie. Here’s the reason I’m telling you why - the US Securities and Exchange Commission is threatening to come to your town if you lie about your data. The SEC has just charged Elizabeth Dragon, a former senior vp of R&D at Sequenom, with lying during at least three public events where she made presentations to analysts and investors about a prenatal test for Down syndrome. She is now barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company, but didn’t admit or deny any of the charges. A financial penalty comes later.

The SEC alleges Dragon falsely claimed the test’s “highly accurate results” were obtained on a blinded basis, but she provided her scientists with known outcomes of the samples, which allowed them to manipulate the data and produce more accurate results. Dragon falsified the number of samples allegedly tested and lied about how well the test worked, claiming it produced unambiguous results. But the SEC says the results were often difficult to interpret, and Dragon needed to unblind the outcomes.

Biotech Exec Charged By SEC For Lying About Data // Pharmalot

Technorati Tags: Sequenom, biotech, SEC, lies, down syndrome, trials, tests, marketing, heatlhcare

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Off Duty Cop Pretended To Be a Terrorist Gunman and Stormed a Hospital Critical Care Unit in Nevada

The hospital’s director of public safety was in on the whole exercise and stated he wanted the effort to be as realistic as possible and after the fact stated that staff should have been notified ahead of time. 

This is crazy as the unit where this happened has the sickest patients too.  One thing that comes to mind here is that if this had happened in Arizona, with their new gun law that doesn’t require any registration, you might have some gun packing nurses to confront, think about that one.  That is not to say that nurses need to pack a pistol by any means, but it could happen, and for that matter what would stop a patient from having their gun at their bed side too.  This is a bad scenario any way you look at it.  

The cop even went as far as herding all the nurses into a room before he let on what he was doing.  We have enough crazy people out there and granted a high alert awareness is a good thing, but preparedness training should be carried out a little differently.  BD 

At the St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada this past Monday, a very unusual and terrifying scene took place that left nearly all its participants in shock -- both out of fear and genuine bewilderment as to how safety planners could be so stupid.

That's because last Monday, an off-duty police officer stormed into the hospital's Sienna campus, where the most sick patients are cared for, and pointed a gun at staff. He then ordered as many as 10 nurses down a hallway and into a room, according to a local report.

It all turned out to be a "safety" drill gone horribly wrong.  But in Monday’s incident, which occurred in a unit that houses the hospital’s sickest patients, nurses, patients and their families did not know it was a drill, said Renee Ruiz, organizer of the California Nurses Association, which represents staff at the hospital."

Off-duty cop pretended to be terrorist gunman in hospital’s unannounced ’safety’ drill | Raw Story

Technorati Tags: Cop, hospital, terrorists, gun, drill, safety, nurses, Nevada, St. Rose Dominican Hospital

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Refrigerated Warehousing and Logistics Is Big Business for Biotech And Healthcare

Have you participated in any clinical trials where any tissue samples were needed?  Chances are they may be stored in refrigerated warehouse.  Why do they do this?  Sometimes the tissue is needed for additional studies so rather than go repeat something that has already been done, the samples are available.

One company mentioned here, BioStorage also coordinate shipments and there are 2 scheduled 747 flights between the US and Germany, where a second location of BioStorage is located.  When you stop and think – 2 747 jets full of biotech samples, etc.

Schenker is the logistics company in charge, a remembrance back to an earlier life for me here as I spent over 25 years in logistics myself.  Also I might mention for small packages that contain biotech cargo, FedEx has a special service to where you can track a shipment 24/7, even in the air. 

FedEx Introduces SenseAware – Focus on Healthcare and Life Sciences for Tracking Shipments In Real Time 

FedEx also has a working agreement with CryoPort for shipping biotech materials.  As you can see the days of “dry ice” are just about all but gone, at least in the biotech and healthcare areas.  BD 

CryoPort and FedEx Solution for Shipping Temperature-sensitive Medicines and Biomaterials

Pharmaceutical and biotech firms long ago outsourced transportation of their bio material and finished drugs.
Outsourcing management and storage of samples they collect for clinical trials and other work—not so much.
Until now. In the past few years, a handful of cold storage facilities have sprouted locally by playing to Indianapolis’ strengths in warehousing and life sciences.
Companies such as BioStorage Technologies Inc. have helped pioneer and define the emergence of third-party cold-chain storage for the pharma and biotech industries.

One BioStorage client, a drug company, learned the hard way by not preserving samples—and getting slapped by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“A repeat trial could have been avoided … They ended up third to the market” at a loss of $800 million, said Lori Ball, senior vice president of BioStorage.

BioStorage also bar codes, labels and stores blood bio samples for Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., one of the biggest makers of defibrillators. The samples are a key in Medtronic’s investigation of genetics in life-threatening heart arrhythmias.
Now with about 75 employees, BioStorage claims to have the world’s largest purpose-built clinical trial repository. It also has a facility in Germany.

So highly regulated is the supply chain, from manufacturing to delivery, that BioStorage runs its new freezers and refrigerators through a four-step validation process before putting them into service.

A lot of drug developers are storing samples longer term, hoping science will “catch up,” Ball said. “The samples we’re storing are being used for that intelligence.”

Examples of Sample Types Stored:

• Active pharmaceutical ingredients
• Allograft materials
• Animal samples
• Antibodies
• Biomarker samples
• Blood
• Bone
• Body fluids
• Cell lines
• Clinical & pre-clinical trial materials
  (Phases I, II, III, IV)
• Clinical drug products
• Clinical supplies
• Cord blood
• DNA
• Fixed tissue preparations
• Forensics samples
• Genomic & proteomic materials
• Histopathology slides

Biopharma fueling boom in refrigerated warehousing | Indianapolis Business Journal | IBJ.com

Technorati Tags: FDA, pharma, biotech, warehousing, storage, drug companies, clinical trials, tissue, supply chain, science, Biostorage, Fedex, logistics

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DNA Testing Has Gone to the Dogs – Find Out the Genealogy Behind That Dog You Rescued at the Pound

Who’s your doggie’ daddy?  In addition to finding out the ancestry you can better understand your dog’s temperament  and behavior if you know the his/her breed lines and be aware of some health risks that might come along with some types.

You might have some fun getting the swab of saliva but many dog will “drool” it out for you easily (grin).  This is the same company that will analyze and find out “who pooped” when trying to figure out who’s the person without the pooper scooper in the community if this is an issue that needs to be dealt with.  BD 

BioPet Vet Lab Announces PooPrints – Personalized “Poop”

From the website:

“The DNA of any dog governs the appearance of the dog as well as being related to the general behavioral characteristics of the breed. In recent years, there has been a great deal of research performed on how differences in DNA give rise to the differences that are seen between breeds.
Advances in DNA testing technology mean that it has become possible to identify the ancestry of any dog by performing a simple test using a cheek swab. The DNA required for the test to be run is isolated from cells that are trapped on the swab. All cells carry the same genetic material, regardless of type or location in the animal. Taking a cheek swab is therefore the easiest way to obtain the samples needed for testing”

Just like similar tests intended for humans, all that’s required is taking a cheek swab of saliva from Fido and sending it off to the BioPet Vet Lab. There  the sample will be analyzed and a determination of the breeds that have contributed to the makeup of your dog will be made. The whole process from receipt of the sample to a detailed report landing on your doorstep should take less than two weeks. The company says it believes that 92.5% of the mixed breed dog population in the USA is covered by its 62 validated breeds – with more breeds being added all the time.

Who’s your doggy’s daddy? – find out with the DNA Breed ID Kit

Technorati Tags: DNA. Dogs, BioPet, animals, pets, geonomics, dog pound, technology

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New Blood Test Approved by FDA Evaluates Ovarian Masses for Malignancy Prior to Surgery

The test is done pre-surgery and is a pre-operative evaluation.  Quest Diagnostics has the test and women must have not already been referred to a specialist in oncology.  The test if negative results would generate that need I would assume immediately.  

Ovarian masses are common place and the test can determine if it is malignant, again prior to surgery with testing 5 proteins in a blood test.

The new blood test is 92% accurate, compared to conventional screenings with CAT scans which are at 72% so this sounds like this is well worth it’s effort by all means.  One attribute that is a positive for ovarian cancer is that if caught early enough, the cancer is contained within the ovary and women can go about life just fine without one or both of them.  BD 

 

More than a million women are living with ovarian masses. Twenty-two thousand of them will be told that they have cancer and more than 14,000 women will die this year.

Traditional tests missed Cindy Hastings' cancer. A routine surgery turned into a hysterectomy when doctors finally spotted it. Then, she had a second surgery to make sure the cancer didn't spread.

The test -- called OVA1 -- reads five specific proteins in a woman's blood. It can determine if an ovarian mass is malignant, benign or if the patient needs to see a specialist for surgery.

"If I would have known and had the OVA1 prior, I wouldn't have had to have the second surgery. I would have just gone right on to the oncology doctor," said Hastings.

This is the first laboratory blood test that can help doctors determine if a woman is at risk for ovarian cancer. The test can indicate the likelihood of a woman getting the cancer with high sensitivity before any biopsy or surgery. The OVA1 is an in-vitro diagnostic multivariate index test that uses results from five immunoassays to produce a single score showing the likelihood of cancer. Having the OVA1 allows for a pre-operative evaluation to help doctors assess the likelihood of surgery and care for the woman. Vermillion, Inc., a molecular diagnostics company, with the help of Quest Diagnostics, developed the OVA1. To qualify for the test, women must meet the following criteria: be over age 18, have an ovarian adnexal mass present for which surgery is planned and must not yet be referred to an oncologist.

Can cancer be detected w/ a drop of blood? | abc7.com

Technorati Tags: Cancer, ovarian cancer, healthcare, labs, Quest diagnostics, womens healthcare, blood tests, OVA1, FDA

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