92648

Life Time Fitness and Best Buy Provide Life Time Members Monthly Dues Savings When They Purchase Best Buy Gift Cards

6/04/2011 09:06:00 PM  , ,  

This is an interesting partnership to drive digital purchases and get in shape at theimage same time.  Life Time Fitness also has corporate wellness programs as well and it appears some locations offer “spa” services inside the gym with everything from a massage to skin care.  We don’t have them in California thus I was not familiar with all their offerings.  Up and coming too are savings on cell phones and mobile phone accessories and services.  Gee maybe the cell phone vendors will move over to the gyms and have their booth there too? 

In looking at the site, there’s all kinds of other deals offered through the company such as Avis Rent a Car, Jiffy Lube, Sam’s Club, Toyota, ADT Security Alarms, Netflix  and more.  These are coupons and we know what happens with coupons, data is profiled and collected so just think your neighborhood gym is now connected to all the associates here to provide and/or potentially sell and share data.  BD 

Habits and Identities Revealed via Coupons – Facebook Fan Pages Can Make User ID Visible – Shopping Algorithms Reduce Privacy And Increase Visibility

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM) and imageBest Buy (NYSE: BBY) today announced that Life Time members now can save on their monthly membership dues with the purchase of Best Buy gift cards.

“Our commitment with Member Advantage is to help members achieve valuable savings on the products and services they already buy, extending the many benefits of a Life Time membership”

image

Offered through Life Time’s Member Advantage price club, members now can receive a $5 or $10 dues credit, respectively, for every $50 and $100 and Best Buy gift card they purchase. Members may purchase as many Best Buy gift cards as they wish with no limit to the dues savings they may receive. Best Buy gift cards may easily and conveniently be purchased through Life Time’s Member Advantage Program at myLT.com, a website dedicated to Life Time members.

Additionally, Life Time and Best Buy Mobile plan to offer incremental future savings on cellular phones, including smart phones, mobile phone accessories and services.

Life Time Fitness and Best Buy Team up to Provide Life Time Members Monthly Dues Savings with Purchase of Best Buy Gift Cards | Business Wire

Read More

NIH Approves Two GMP Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines From BioTime Which Creates Additional Availability for Federal Funding

6/04/2011 11:56:00 AM  , , ,  

We now have 2 more lines of human embryonic stem cells added to the Registry and this is a total now of 93 approved that qualify for federal funding.  ESI-014 and ESI-017 are the two new designations.  They are in compliance with the Good Tissue Practices, aka cGTP and will help research in the search for cures.   One such stem cell program that has been in the news of late is the clinical trials for spinal cord damage.

Stanford Joins Geron Spinal Cord Clinical Trials Program as the 3rd Location in the US

When you are able to see dramatic results with people being able to walk again, this is big and can’t be ignored by all means.  One patient in Atlanta with the Geron clinical trial was in the news of late talking about beginning to have “feeling” in areas of his legs and his lap that has been gone for a long time.  He has undergone 6 months of therapy so far with small injections of stem cells that they hope will grow new cells.  We may also look someday to have joint replacement regenerate with stem cells too and there’s already some research and treatment in this area with knees. 

Spinal Cord Injury Patient Treated With Non-Matched Donor Adult Stem Cells Is Walking Again

About BioTime from the Website:

“Regenerative medicine refers to therapies based on human embryonic stem (“hES”) cell technology that are designed to rebuild cell and tissue function lost due to degenerative disease or injury. The great scientific and public interest in regenerative medicine lies in the potential of hES cells to transform into any cell type of the human body. hES cells therefore show considerable potential as a source of new therapies for a host of currently-incurable diseases such as: imagediabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, heart failure, arthritis, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, macular degeneration, hearing loss, kidney and liver failure, as well as many other disorders that may be treated by replacing diseased or damaged organ tissues. In response to the unusual potential of the field, the State of California has allocated $3 billion over the next 10 years to fund basic research, and President Obama has lifted previous restrictions for federal funding of stem cell research.

Led by Dr. Michael West, considered by many to be a founding father of the stem cell industry, BioTime has assembled an array of products and associated intellectual property that give it the potential to be a leader in this exciting new field of medicine.
We are implementing a near-term revenues strategy in the regenerative medicine field by seeking to develop and market advanced hES products and technology that can be used by researchers at universities and biopharmaceutical companies. These research-only products generally can be marketed without regulatory (FDA) approval, and are therefore relatively near-term business opportunities when compared to human therapeutic products. We may also initiate development programs for human therapeutic applications if sufficient capital becomes available to us or through joint efforts with industry partners.”

This is fascinating and fast growing technology and a couple months back I sat in on a web cast to listen to what the founder, Dr. West had to say as well, very educational and informative.  There’s quite a bit of information about regenerative medicine at the link including the TED video to where a small liver was “printed”. 

Stem Cells Explained-Dr. Michael West Founder of Geron Corporation Stresses The Need For Continued and Accelerated Funding

With the 2 new approvals the doors are open for potential imagefederal funding for more research and development.  If you want to read about more success stories with stem cell treatment, check out Stem Cell Research Facts and there’s a ton of information available at the website.  BD  

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex:BTX), a biotechnology company that develops and markets products in the field of regenerative medicine, today announced that two human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines, ESI-014 and ESI-017, developed by a BioTime subsidiary have been approved by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for inclusion in the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry. This approval opens the door to the use of these cell lines in Federally funded research. To BioTime’s knowledge, these are the first such cell lines approved for Federal funding that were derived under conditions designed to be compliant with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) for human clinical use.

“This approval is key to our strategy of making our bank of GMP-compliant hES cell lines the industry standard for the development of a wide array of new human therapeutic products,” said Michael D. West, Ph.D., President and CEO of BioTime. “We believe our ESI hES cell lines are the best characterized and documented lines available today. Our clinical grade hES cell lines were derived using procedures and documentation that are in compliance with current Good Tissue Practices (cGTP) and cGMP, which we believe will facilitate the transition of therapeutic products derived by researchers from these cell lines from laboratory to clinical use. We’re grateful the NIH has approved the use of ESI-014 and ESI-017 and we look forward to working with researchers to translate the science into commercially successful therapeutic products.”

The NIH created the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry in 2001 in order to facilitate research using human embryonic stem cells. The registry now includes hES cell lines that meet certain eligibility criteria including ethical derivation and informed consent. Only research projects using hES cell lines listed in the Registry are eligible for Federal funding.

BioTime Receives NIH Approval for Two GMP Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines - Yahoo! Finance

Read More

Out of Focus Lawmakers With Digital Illiteracy–Bill To Make It A Criminal Offense for Embedding You Tube Videos and Time And Money Wasted With John Edwards Case

6/04/2011 11:03:00 AM  ,  

This further proves the case that we need some focus and the right technology to understand and drill down on the complicated wording used relative to copyrights on videos.  It’s a changed world today and the same laws that were put in place a while back need an update.  Laws don’t last forever with emerging technologies and it’s apparent that we have some groups that don’t subscribe to this philosophy.image

On Edwards, we have all buried this and moved on, give it a break and be done with it.  It’s a waste of taxpayer money and nobody cares anymore, as I said we have moved on.  There are more important issues to focus on like the behaviors of banks and big corporations that have an impact on our lives.  I didn’t care for what Edwards did, but let it die and move on.  We simply just can seem to find focus any more and witch hunts still prevail and why this is even newsworthy with Edwards is beyond me.  I agree with the opinion in the Wall Street Journal below, we have more important issues at hand.  I see the link below as more vital then the garbage here with Edwards and YouTube videos. 

Corporate Taxes and Lack of Legal Digital Literacy Allow Big US Corporations To Stash Billions Overseas, Pharma, Tech, All Well Represented (60 Minutes) (Video)

They need more technology in Congress to mine and find the information they need and when IBM Watson was demonstrated they sadly only saw this as a game, but Wall Street is ready for it, so what does that tell you about the caliber of the folks making laws?  It tells me we have a lot of non participants with technology who live in a world of distraction and denial. 

IBM Watson Did Get a Chance to Go To Congress-Should be a Permanent Home For Greater Intelligence for Creating Laws

Video digital media is exploding all over the web and we have this “bill” they struggle with on the books to propose this ridiculous stipulation that will ruin everything for everyone.  We all pretty much know what is and what is not acceptable but sometimes even that gets gray out there with video content.  Jails are already full so even enforcing such a law is a lark at minimum.  Perhaps a little  more participation in social networking would wake some folks up.  BD

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. A few weeks back, we noted that Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons had proposed a new bill that was designed to make "streaming" infringing material a felony. At the time, the actual text of the bill wasn't available, but we assumed, naturally, that it would just extend "public performance" rights to section 506a of the Copyright Act.

Supporters of this bill claim that all it's really doing is harmonizing US copyright law's civil and criminal sections. After all, the rights afforded under copyright law in civil cases cover a list of rights: reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works or perform the work. The rules for criminal infringement only cover reproducing and distributing -- but not performing. So, supporters claim, all this does is "harmonize" copyright law and bring the criminal side into line with the civil side by adding "performance rights" to the list of things.

Furthermore, as we suspected, in the full text of the bill, "performance" is not clearly defined. This is the really troubling part. Everyone keeps insisting that this is targeted towards "streaming" websites, but is streaming a "performance"? If so, how does embedding play into this? Is the site that hosts the content guilty of performing? What about the site that merely linked to and/or embedded the video (linking and embedding are technically effectively the same thing). Without clear definitions, we run into problems pretty quickly.

So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don't know it was infringing...? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos.

Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos | Techdirt

Read More

Jackson Laboratory Pulls Plan to Build Facility in Sarasota County, Florida-Lack of State Funding For Economic Development Stem Cell Research Project

6/04/2011 10:10:00 AM  , ,  

Creating the research and development center would have brought additional jobs imageand additional spin off companies to the area but now the company is looking to build in other states, such as Utah and Texas to further research on personalized medicine.  According to the article below the state wanted a proposal for a reduced amount of funding which Jackson Labs said was not possible and did not resubmit a lower dollar amount.  Jackson Labs had not been able to meet with Rick Scott, governor of Florida who appeared to not be very keen on the project going back to the days of campaigning. 

The governor had also been on record as being opposed to embryonic stem cell research so we know how that works in the wacky world of politics today and that is strange due to the fact that in a former life he was the CEO of a major hospital chain in the southeast until he was forced to resign due to an investigation of Medicare fraud.  It all seems to point back to the same old direction once again.  Voters would have been asked in time to add an additional $100 million in local funding.  BD 

From the Website:

“We are an independent, nonprofit organization focusing on mammalian genetics research to advance human health. Our mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human disease, and to enable research for the global biomedical community.”

Jackson Laboratory said Friday it will withdraw its request for $100 million in state funding, ending its plans for a proposed biomedical village in Sarasota County that could have eventually employed thousands.

The decision brings to a close Sarasota County's high-profile and expensive effort to move the local economy away from its dependence on construction, retirees and tourism and break into the burgeoning life sciences and pharmaceutical fields.

Had the lab overcome severe state funding obstacles and achieved its promise, biomedical science would have become one of the largest sectors in the local economy by 2031. By then, the lab would have had an annual economic impact of $550 million, through direct employment, spin-off companies and affiliated research.

The six-month effort to get the Bar Harbor, Maine-based lab to build a 129,000-square-foot research facility here fell apart Friday when it was asked to submit "a much-reduced proposal" for state funding and declined to do so, Chuck Hewett, Jackson's executive vice president, said in a release.

That meeting apparently never came about, though a scheduled meeting this week was widely rumored. Hansen, state Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, and Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta all said they thought a meeting with Scott was scheduled. The governor had made negative comments about Jackson's Collier County bid during last year's campaign.

Since Scott became governor, his limited comments about the Jackson project all involved whether the lab's economic impact would generate enough in new state tax dollars to warrant a state investment.

Scott's office declined Friday to comment on Jackson's decision.

Jackson Laboratory pulls plan to build facility in Sarasota County | HeraldTribune.com

Read More

Researchers Ask For Help From Your Computer–BOINC-Become a Home Researcher Or Just Donate PC Power

6/03/2011 10:16:00 PM  , ,  

I have covered similar items such as the program at Stanford to where you can let imageyour computer idle power contribute to research.  It only runs when your computer is idle and the screensaver comes on.  BOINC is a little more involved to where you can again let your computer be used for power or you can join in with projects and contribute some research time!

Protein Folding – Put your Computer to work for Science during Idle time – Stanford University

Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific imageresearch. It's safe, secure, and easy:

  1. Choose projects
  2. Download and run BOINC software
  3. Enter an email address and password.

Or, if you run several projects, try an account manager such as GridRepublic or BAM!.

Open-source software for volunteer computing and grid computing

image

image

Below are the current stats so if you are interested in participating you can use the links to read up and get some additional information.  With measuring TeraFLOPS you can see they are getting some serious computing power too!  BD 

Active: 307,470 volunteers, 489,404 computers.
24-hour average: 5,776.06 TeraFLOPS.

John P. Myers is contributing 5,826 GFLOPS.
Country: United States; Team: SETI.USA

Scientific research has an unbounded need for computing power to analyze data and to simulate reality at scales ranging from subatomic to cosmological. David Anderson is working to unlock a new source of computing power: the billions of PCs owned by people around the world. This resource is far more powerful than clouds, grids and imagesupercomputers, and is nearly free to scientists and funding agencies. Anderson and his team develop a software system called BOINC to support "volunteer computing," in which PC owners can donate their idle time to science projects. BOINC transforms a large set of volunteered computers, which are diverse, un-trusted, and sporadically available, into a trusted and predictable resource for high-throughput scientific computing.

Currently there are over 50 BOINC-based projects doing research in areas ranging from biomedicine to cosmology, with 300,000 active volunteers and 500,000 PCs. This computing power has led to scientific progress of many sorts, including the recent discovery of a new and unusual pulsar, as described in the following NSF press release and an article in Wired News.

Researchers Ask For Help From Your Home Computers | ScienceLives | LiveScience

Read More

CMS Working to Allow Certain Organizations Access to Physician Claim Data–Cost Will be In the Millions and Data Will Be Flawed

6/03/2011 09:47:00 PM  , , ,  

Obviously there’s pressure from members of Congress with bills created to put this information online and of course there’s the Dow Jones lawsuit wanting the same thing.  I think this is perhaps an idea that could wait for a better time, as the cost will be in the millions.  It’s just like we have a lot of consumer health apps written today and some of it is done just because they can write it.  Of course there’s good software created too but a large majority of what is done today ends up on the cutting room floor. I don’t know if anyone else has taken time to notice the deluge of data and information we all have flying at us today but I’m affected and there’s a lot of it, so tell me how many consumers will use this?  How many will have time?

Do Some Think That Health IT Costs and Systems Grow On Trees-Certainly Starting To Give That Impression of Late

You don’t always have to create data pools and information to search just because it’s there and again in my opinion this is a huge waste of time and money by all means.  Maybe CMS has their own plans for data arranged in this manner and certainly it will be data the insurance companies will all hone in on as they can’t get enough data today and will analyze anything that breathes today. 

I can see the restrictions on qualifying who would have access and maybe this is their way out of having to supply this information to more than perhaps a small handful, again after they have spent millions on data that is crunched and full of errors.  If you have ever done any medical billing, you know exactly what I am talking about and it’s those in positions who have never been exposed to the information or had any hands on that think this is such a great idea.  When everyone is trying to save money we need to spend million on this? I said the Congressmen proposing this were digitally illiterate to want this data out imagethere.  It’s a waste of time and money right now.  

Two More Senators Propose More Bills to Publish Medicare Claims Data Without A Hint of Digital Literacy Relative to Cost and Time

The doctors who have had a run of some bad billers know what is going to show up out there too.

Medicare Data Base–It Is Not Ready for Prime Time To Expose to the Web Due to Errors Factors and Consumer Credibility In It’s Present State Relating to Physician Records

To make my case all you have to do is look at both the CMS and other for profit MD referral sites and see the flaws there and that’s just a yellow pages listing with consumers adding comments along with any negative board comments and they can’t get that right. I’m a taxpayer like everyone else who has worked with data bases and I am up to date on current trends and the huge amounts of data we have to look at and again what’s the purpose of this, spend the big dollars and do it just because it can be done?  Where’s common sense anymore? 

You can see the post from a short while back where I found my former MD who had been dead for 8 years still listed with HealthGrades and several of the other referral sites as taking new patients and honoring HealthNet, so guess how this claim data is going to look when they take and aggregate it with insurance company numbers.  I understand that is the ultimate plan here to combine both Medicare and the insurance numbers.  There’s going to be a ton of Health IT companies hanging their tongues out to get a chunk of this multi-million dollar project. 

HealthGrades And Other MD Rating and Referral Sites List “Dead Doctors” on Their MD Information Pages And Even Include the Insurance Plans the “Dead Doctors” Honor

In the day and age we live in today no data would be better than the flawed information that’s going to result from this project and besides save the money and spend it on patients, a much better cause.  Before this decision is finally made, they should go visit some doctors and billers and see what’s going to end up out there, they will tell you and some doctors are not going to look good and it will ultimately offer too much information and make a decision process more difficult.  Word of mouth referrals are still the best as well as research on the web to help out.  BD 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to allow certain organizations access to Medicare claims data to produce public reports that will offer consumers and employers a more accurate snapshot of the performance of physicians and hospitals.

These reports, combined with private sector claims data, will identify the hospitals and physicians with the highest quality and cost-effective care, the agency said in announcing its proposed rule June 3.

The proposed rule supports efforts of the health reform law to improve healthcare quality and lower costs. CMS will formally publish it in the June 8 Federal Register and accept public comment for 60 days.

CMS to publicly report provider performance | Government Health IT

Read More

Physical Virtue Solution To Assess and Train Neck Disorders, Microsoft Kinect And More As Shown This Week at the Israel Conference

6/03/2011 02:50:00 PM  , , ,  

This week I attended the Israel Conference in Los Angeles and what showing of new technologies.  You can use the link here or at the bottom the post to see what on the schedule and what companies were represented.  I was able to catch up with a few and of course I’m always on the look out for those technologies for imagehealthcare and I found a few individuals to speak with.  The first technology is called Physical Virtue and I was able to to talk with Dr. Hilla Saris-Bahat from Israel and watch several demonstrations on how the product works.  The therapy is simple and actually pretty relaxing as you learn how to move your head and neck with the help of the a trip lane video and moving an object around it.  I was able to watch the computer as others put on the “glasses” to try it out.  In watching others, the participation here looked very relaxing and who can’t use a little bit of that today. 

Dr. Hilla Sarig-Bahat took some time out and explained to me how it worked and the resulting analytics given on the computer.  She has a patent pending for the technology and has bee working on further development with interactive training for a while as it stands to shorten recovery times for injuries and even prevent chronic conditions.  She has a physiotherapy clinic in Israel and provides musculoskeletal rehabilitation for patients.  In addition on her website you can see her affiliation with the Microsoft Israel R and D Center.  Also in listening to the various panels and presentations during the day, they all highly promoted groups as such to where people can collaborate and create new and advanced technologies. too. 

From the Website:

“Physical Virtue - Resolving neck disorders with VR training.Physical Virtue provides a reliable and accurate method for evaluation and management of neck disorders. The developed training method is interactive, motivating and pain distracting, suitable for people suffering from pain and stiffness in the cervical spine.”image

“Physical Virtue developed a custom-made virtual reality application (patent pending) that assesses and trains neck disorders. Motion tracking is used for analysis of cervical motion.

Our solution provides a reliable, functional and dynamic approach to cervical motion assessment and management. Our training is interactive, motivating and pain distracting, adjusted for home training. The Physical Virtue method has great potential to expand to other areas of medical rehabilitation. This project is supported by the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.”

In addition I watched the Cool Content and Convergence with Microsoft/XBOX Corporate VP Ilan Spillinger, Genesis Partners General Partner Jonathan Saacks, LivePerson, Inc. CEO and Chairman of the Board Robert LoCascio, Mindspark InterActive Network CEO Joey Levin, Side-Kick Co-Founder and CEO Guy Bendov, Kaltura Chairman and CEO Ron Yekutiel.  I also had some time to chat with Ilan Spillinger from Microsoft about Kinect and during the panels he told his story on how both he and and the Kinect Technology came to Microsoft and how nobody had a clue that it would take off as it did with setting Guinness World Book records for sales. 

For the convention Kinect was shown with X-Box and what it does and then we got around to talking about Kinect in healthcare and what it does and how people are using it, since I post those items of interest here at the Quack.  Below are a couple of the prior posts if you want to catch up and see what’s going on with healthcare.  Side Kick, a Kinect game developer from Israel was set up with Kinect so everyone could go over and give it a whirl.  Ilan stated that right now the focus with Kinect has been gaming for the most part but that healthcare is not far off as we talked about screen resolutions and other areas that will certainly further be developed as time moves on, but he definitely saw the road in the future for more use in healthcare to come forward. 

Kinect And daVinci Surgical Robot Do Simulated Surgery Suturing Together (Video)

Microsoft Kinect Working with a PACS Server-Images on Steroids Via Gestures (Video)

Back to the overall conference I spoke many other companies and individuals as imagewell and learned quite a bit.  One message I think everyone walked away with from the technology side is that “learned computer” technology is here to stay and is being rapidly developed in almost every area of technology today.  Again when having the opportunity to talk a bit when I mentioned that I used to code the conversations with most immediately elevated to a very technical level too which was great, not that I didn’t want to hear the rest of what was said, but I kind of like to kick things around upstairs as I seem to be one of those types of individuals who always want to get a visual upstairs in the brain:)image

I also have to mention one company that kept everyone going and that was the Soda Stream company who has the amazing product that carbonizes water and allows you to make any flavor, diet and regular that you may want.  They had a drawing to give away a few of these and their booth was busy all day long.  All products are made in Israel and they have their US office located in Pennsylvania so this was good as we all like healthy flavored water. 

In addition we were all treated to a presentation from from Jonathon Miller, Chief imageDigital Officer, Chairman and CEO of the Digital Media Group for News Corporation.  He has just finished up his appearance at the D9 Conference here in Los Angeles as well.  His presentation was titled “The Name of the Game is Digital News” and he had a lot of interesting comments, thoughts and topics to discuss for sure and we were all well entertained for sure. 

In addition other companies represented were DocStoc and Kaltura which are 2 big names you might already be familiar with.  The video below is from YouTube which shows shows the VIP reception with a short discussion with a couple of them and explains the mission of the conference.  Docstoc said he shows up every year because everyone watches Channel 10 in Los Angeles:) 

Israel Convention–VIP Dinner

Again as I mentioned above everyone is here to do business and the focus is on “machine learned” technologies whether it is a video media business or a company serving up ad or coupons.  In addition one other company and individual I should mention is Tal Simantov the co-imagefounder and CMO of 5minMedia which is a web based application that serves up related videos for populating sites with related material.  Not too long ago AOL purchased the company and their publishers include About.com and the Huffington Post among many more.  I am working on a website for my sponsor SNN Wire myself and maybe looking at using their services myself before too much longer.

Again it was a great day with a lot of networking going on and my brain hurt at the end of the day but very well focused and again seeing some new healthcare and other technology focused companies was great.  I think about the average layman seeing all of this and on one hand I think it could have served to be a big awakening and point of education and then when you get to folks like me, it offers additional education levels with being able to have access and speak directly with the officers and other key individuals of the companies represented. 

At other conventions I have attended over the years there have been people hired to try to get attendees attention for conversations, but that was NOT the case at all here as everyone was in high gear to discuss, talk and share ideas and network.  Hold on to your hats as this next couple of years is going to transform digital technology into some entirely new levels and how it’s all going to play out together we don’t know as new innovations and collaborative efforts seem to occur almost daily anymore:)  BD  

http://www.theisraelconference.org/index.php

Read More

Hologic Acquires TCT International in China, Distributor of Medical Products

6/02/2011 10:35:00 PM  ,  

Hologic makes a series of diagnostics products and recently was in the news with the FDA approval of their 3D mammogram devices.  Hologram products are pretty much all in the area of women's’ health. TCT will be integrated into the Hologic operations.  BD 

FDA Approves First 3-D Mammography Device But Opinions Divided on Usefulness Over 2-D Where Detection Rate is the Same

Hologic 3D Mammogram Reviewed by FDA and Determined 3D Mammograms Are Safe Even With Higher Levels of Radiation–If Approved by FDA - It’s a Software Upgrade from 2D to 3D

Hologic Inc. said Wednesday it has acquired Chinese medical products distributor TCT International Co. Ltd. for $135 million in cash.image

Hologic, which supplies diagnostic products, said that it expects the acquisition will generate $10 million in revenue and help boost earnings per share.

"We firmly believe by controlling a distribution channel as extensive as TCT's, we can better leverage our entire product portfolio to drive growth across multiple market segments," said Rob Cascella, Hologic's president and chief executive.

Hologic buys China's TCT International - BusinessWeek

Read More

Cleveland Clinic CEO Recommends Changes to Current ACO Rules

6/02/2011 10:20:00 PM  ,  

In addition to the Cleveland Clinic, several other hospitals and chains have sent their concerns and suggestion to CMS.  The Cleveland Clinic specifically saw conflicts that would ultimately put barriers in the way of success.  As I wrote before the cost of an ACO is not done without the proper and effective Health IT management tools in imageorder to contain and evaluate all areas that need to come into play. 

Will Healthcare ACO Incentives Be Consumed by Software and Vendor Expenses When It’s All Said and Done?

429 pages is a lot of rules and information to consume and analyze for implementation to meet all provisions.  CMS is still taking comments on the proposed new rules.  To qualify a minimum of 5,000 of Medicare patients needs to be managed over 3 years.  There is certainly room to save in all areas of healthcare but will rules improve the quality of care, this is the question the Clinic was questioning as some of the provisions do nothing to improve outcome.  BD 

Proposed federal rules for accountable care organizations create significant barriers that would discourage hospitals from adopting the new model of care, according to Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove.

Cosgrove made the comments in an eight-page letter addressed to Donald Berwick, top administrator for the the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), though Cosgrove stressed that the Clinic supports the concept of accountable care organizations (ACOs).

Cosgrove said the Clinic was “generally disappointed” with the details of the 429-page proposed regulations that describe how ACOs would be set up and run. The letter was posted by Modern Healthcare.

Proposed Medicare ACO rules create ‘significant barriers’ says Cleveland Clinic CEO | MassDevice - Blog entry

Read More

Physician Salaries Represent 8% of Total US Healthcare Cost

6/02/2011 10:01:00 PM  ,  

When it comes to the high costs of physicians in healthcare, having 8% of the total imageamount spent based on this survey, is small.  Costly tests still add up and radiologists and cardiologists earn between 2-3 times as family practice physicians.  The survey showed $170,000 as an average for family practice doctors but I know some that don’t even make $100k in California, in other words their salary is what’s left over after the bills are paid.  BD 

As physicians face tighter scrutiny from consumers and public health experts, a survey conducted by Jackson Healthcare reveals that physician pay accounts for approximately 8 percent of total U.S. spending on medical care, while only a minority of physicians receive additional earnings for ordering imaging or other tests.  

Using data from the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Jackson Healthcare estimated that physician salaries in the U.S. totaled $216 billion in 2009, while national health spending reached $2.5 trillion in that year overall.

Based on results from the survey, Atlanta-based Jackson Healthcare, which provides medical staffing, management and health IT products, found that 82 percent of physicians receive no compensation for ordering imaging, prescriptions, labs or other tests. Meanwhile, a minority of physicians—36 percent—reported that their yearly income came only from fixed sources.

Physician salaries 8 percent U.S. healthcare costs

Read More

WHO Classifies Mobile RF Radiation A Class 2B Cancer Causing Agent And There’s an App For Detection..Sort Of

5/31/2011 11:24:00 PM  , ,  

There’s a cell phone radiation gauge that can be used on cell phones and it turns into an graph to show you how much radiation the phone is sending out.  It includes warnings to use the speakerphone, turn the phone and move it’s location.  The application is called tawkon.  This just might pick up some interest.  BD

Now that the World Health Organization and The International Agency for Research on Cancer have classified mobile RF radiation a Class 2B imagecarcinogen, it might be time for Steve Jobs to reconsider his interest in tawkon, the cell phone radiation gauge he personally rejected from the iTunes App store.

Israel-based Tawkon Ltd. has devised an application that turns a smartphone's RF baseband processor data into an an easy-to-read graph that tells you roughly how much radiation your mobile phone is emitting. Though the developers had several "encouraging" meetings with Apple executives, and the app was already available both for BlackBerry and Android, the app was ultimately rejected by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Maybe Steve Jobs should reconsider the iPhone radiation app after all | Software News - Betanews

Read More

Brazilian Blowout Goes Beyond FDA to Capitol Hill

5/31/2011 09:07:00 PM  ,  

The big issue with the hair straightening product is the formaldehyde exposure to the salon workers and patrons too I guess for that matter.  According to Fox News six other countries have already taken action on the product.

FDA Investigating the Safety of Brazilian Blowouts

From the pictures, the results look great but maybe a gas mask is next for all who participate:)  There should be some way to take care of the fumes with all the technology we have out there today.  BD   

Last November, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to salons informing them that Brazilian Blowout may be a health threat after confirming the product contained high levels of formaldehyde – a suspected human carcinogen – in amounts that exceeded government safety guidelines.

Despite this federal government warning and months of negative news reports, many salon owners admit they still use Brazilian Blowout and demand for the $200 to $700 labor intensive treatment remains high.

The noxious fumes produced by the solution can be so irritating that many stylists and their clients would wear gas masks during a treatment.

In April, the California Attorney General, Kameala Harris, took legal action against the manufacturer of Brazilian Blowout, GIB LLC, and issued a preliminary injunction charging the product contained formaldehyde that exceeded state limits “by a factor of more than eight for salon workers” and in the range typical of embalming fluid used by funeral homes.

In a separate statement, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) announced she plans to reintroduce her “Safe Cosmetics Act” and said, “this is a dramatic example of why we urgently need to close the gaping holes in the outdated federal law that allows hazardous chemicals in cosmetic products”.

Under current federal law, the FDA is unable to take any action against products that are unsafe or mislabeled because it lacks the authority to issue a mandatory recall; it can only ask for a voluntary recall. The Safe Cosmetic Act would give the FDA the authority to ensure that personal care products are free of harmful ingredients and that they are fully disclosed on the label.

Brazilian Blowout Concerns Reach Capitol Hill - FoxNews.com

Read More

Kaiser Permanente Satisfied With Their Electronic Medical Records Program In Meeting Their Needs

5/31/2011 04:35:00 PM  ,  

This was a nice video done by the Wall Street Journal that focused on a doctor’s point of view for a big part of it.  What was mentioned though is the fact that they don’t communicate outside the system and that’s totally true as back in 2009 Kaiser and the VA announced their pilot program to exchange records and since that time there are a few others out there too. 

The VA and Kaiser Permanente to Exchange Medical Records in San Diego – Pilot Program

Also worth a mention too was the collaborative group set up in April of 2011 with sharing information via some of the other large healthcare facilities in the US, so again the connectivity issue and sharing is in the works. 

Mayo Clinic, Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente, Intermountain Healthcare, and Group Health Announce Plan to Securely Share Patient-Specific Data Through Care Connectivity Consortium

They also have their new state of the art facility in Washington DC that has tremendous modern learning center.  I remember the story being here in California how they originally tried internally to create their own system and changed directions and decided to award the project to Epic, which is not a bad thing as all as you have to look at your internal IT and programming resources and sometimes it’s too costly or not as productive as have a system installed that has a lot of the work already done for you.  Without a lot of the outside disruption that is faced with other healthcare systems, I think they were able to focus and work on their goals in a more productive manner as they were all on the same system and didn’t have to connect facilities internally that were using different software solutions. 

Kaiser Permanente Opens State of the Art Facility in Washington DC-Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Medical Center

I have had the pleasure here too with a couple of interviews with Kaiser employees, one a doctor and the other with the head of their Innovation Department.

Kaiser Permanente Pediatrician Patricia Richards Explains How The Use of Electronic Medical Records Enhances Knowledge With Obesity and Adds Focus to the “Let’s Move” Obesity Prevention Campaign
Innovation and Learning at Kaiser Permanente – Interview With Chris McCarthy

Kaiser Permanente, the health-maintenance organization giant, is a leader in the health-care sector's shift to digital archives of patient health records, without waiting for the federal government's push. But, as MarketWatch's Russ Britt reports, the journey has been costly and marked by false starts. Nevertheless, doctors at Kaiser say they've accomplished what they were looking for.

Video - California HMO's Bid For Digital Patient Records - WSJ.com

Read More

Molina Picks Centricity Practice Solution For Primary EHR Platform

5/31/2011 03:57:00 PM  ,  

Back in August of 2010 the company had some issues with delayed payments and probably a good reason for their search to find a solution.  In addition the company has grown with the acquisition of Unisys Health and Abri Health along with moving into the Texas area. 

Molina Delayed Medicaid Provider Payments in Idaho– Working to Get the System Fixed–Good Example of Why IT Literate Individuals Need to be in Key Positions To Explain & Fix

Centricity has been around for a long time in the medical record business and I might say they were one of the first and highest priced and today I don’t know if the pricing still holds true when compared to other systems as I would guess the contract here with several locations and physician connectivity is good sized.  I know finding the Centricity page for this post was difficult and I gave up as I looked under all their consulting areas and saw mention of Centricity but ran out of time to look further for a dedicated page, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere.  image

If you want to search yourself here’s a link to the “Business Solutions Group” which is where I would guess more information would be placed.  With marketing today we have a lot of duplicate efforts and I guess the key is to be found in search engines more than one time and over the weekend I made this post about another GE site they came up with too, so they believe in marketing and coverage I guess and duplication of efforts.  I noted the one site below had 4 mobile applications that I think would have been better served under one as consumers are not jumping on the bandwagons of all these applications that get written today, so much duplication there too.  BD

GE Creates HealthyMagination Report and Website–Ho Hum One More Site With Consumers Apps That Will Probably Bite the Dust Like Many Others Have

BARRINGTON, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--After a five month search in which it evaluated all the leading vendors, Molina Healthcare chose Centricity* Practice Solution (CPS) from GE Healthcare as its primary platform for electronic medical records and practice management. However, the staff at Molina Healthcare is confident it won’t take nearly as long after implementation for Molina to realize the benefits.

“We are thrilled that Molina Healthcare selected Centricity Practice Solution to be the IT backbone for their EMR and Practice Management across their entire system”

“Centricity Practice Solution has the flexible tools that will help Molina enhance the quality of care and practice profitability,” said Sonny Patel, Molina’s Director of Technology Projects and Clinic Operations. “We are confident that GE will be there to support us today – and tomorrow.”

Molina, a 16-state healthcare system serving 4.3 million Medicare and Medicaid patients and families, selected CPS 9.5 based on the tool’s strong clinical and financial management integration and its comprehensive functionality for practice administration and electronic medical records (EMR) .

Molina Picks Centricity Practice Solution from GE Healthcare | Business Wire

Read More

Government Cutting Premium Rates by Up to 40% For High Risk Health Insurance For Consumers With Existing Conditions

5/31/2011 01:16:00 PM  ,  

So far the enrollment has reach about 18,000 consumers, far short of the 375,000 that were slated to be able to gain coverage, why, probably because it’s still not affordable and thus we have the premium cuts in place.image

Some patients are turned down because of high cholesterol and the pre-existing condition plans have approved them.  You don’t really know you are a risk until you get turned down for insurance one the risk algorithms are run that determine this fact.  This is why when people apply for health insurance it’s best to apply to the masses at once and this way you don’t have to answer the question if you have been turned down when you apply, because officially you don’t know at that point if you will or will not be turned down. 

The program runs until 2014 when the new law states that all applicants for insurance will be accepted.  That is going to be an interesting space in time for health insurance when it gets here too.  BD 

WASHINGTON — The government is cutting premiums by up to 40 percent in nearly two dozen states and implementing other changes to make it easier for people with pre-existing medical conditions to get health insurance.

The move Tuesday comes as enrollment in the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan continues to lag far behind expectations, often because people can't afford the premiums or find it too hard to meet enrollment requirements.

The insurance program, part of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, began last summer. It offers health insurance to people with medical problems at prices the average healthy person would pay, although that's not necessarily cheap.

Rates cut for hard-to-insure patients - Health - Health care - msnbc.com

Read More

Ion Torrent’s DNA Desktop Machine Walk Through- How Semi Conductor Sequencing Works (Video)

5/31/2011 12:43:00 PM  , ,  

This is a great video to actually see the working machine and how it works.  I have imagewritten about the Ion Torrent machine a couple of times to include it’s debut back in December of 2010.  The link below has another video that further explains how it works.  This is pretty cool as you put in Iphone in the top to monitor the processes running if you want. 

Life Technologies Debuts Ion Torrent Machine-Cheap Genes at $500 for Single Sequence

The key was to get a very simple touch screen interface that almost anyone could use.  With an Iphone monitoring connection you don’t have to be present while the machine does it’s work.  The DNA sample goes right on the chip, the compartment is closed and then you go to the screen to set the parameters of the run.  BD 

California-based Ion Torrent’s DNA machine uses chemistry and imagesemiconductor technology to deliver fast results. Researchers can run samples, go for a coffee break and come back a few hours later.

SmartPlanet’s Boonsri Dickinson visits Ion Torrent to find out how its portable DNA machine could impact genetic testing.

How a DNA sequencing machine uses computer technology to make testing fast | SmartPlanet

Read More

VA and Department of Defense Begin Testing A Common User Interface for VA VistA and AHLTA Medical Records in Hawaii

5/31/2011 11:55:00 AM  ,  

Boy what a surprise here using an interface that will make it easier to query and access records from both systems.  It’s funny that this was proposed on the imageprivate side a few years ago with free software to develop at Code-Plex and on that side of the table nobody bit as it was still the big race to see who could build the better mouse trap for electronic records for users, and there still is a lot of that around.  I first wrote about the Common User Interface back in 2008. 

Microsoft Common User Interface for Health Applications- Silverlight...and Windows Presentation Foundation

Due to the better mousetrap concept and action, we now have more scribes than ever moving into help the doctors in hospitals enter data as they became much more complex and adding new technologies here also contributed.  At any rate it looks like the VA and DOD have come to the same conclusion here which is a goo thing, and it’s either than or employ more scribes and if systems get any more complicated the scribes will be looking at status and pay adjustments soon for their work:)

The VA and DOD also talked about one day having a common data base for all the information, but don’t hold your breath there as that’s a massive project and right now the interface is doing the work on the pilot program.  Right now though the clinicians on the pilot program see one unified screen where they have access.  BD  

The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments have started testing in their Hawaii facilities an application that will provide physicians from both departments a common view of patient information.

The graphical interface provides a single point of entry and a first step to what will become a joint electronic health record.

The online tool enables the clinician to capture all of the information from a patient from VA VistA and DOD AHLTA electronic medical record systems, combines and collates the information so it is presented as a single medical record to the physician, said Roger Baker, VA CIO.

VA, DOD test joint EHR interface in Hawaii | Government Health IT

Read More

Hospitals Continue to Struggle With Drug Shortages–Availability Is Not Always There

5/31/2011 11:14:00 AM  ,  

Everyone is talking about better efficiency at hospitals, well how does that compute when they need to dedicate individuals to check and find drugs that are needed every day to treat patients.  This takes time and the patients lose again when appointments and therapies need to be rescheduled.  As you can see below at UCLA two hours are spent looking to find drugs and making sure they are available every day.  image

Drug Shortages Continue–UCLA Spends 2 Hours A Day Checking on Cancer Drug Availability–ASHP Website Lists All Current Shortages

In addition this leads to additional risk of medication errors.  This situation keeps getting worse, even with the FDA getting involved to allow products to come into the US that normally do not provide certain drugs here.  BD 

According to a new study, more than 200 drugs are in short supply.

Hospitals Struggle with Drug Shortage | Video - ABC News

Read More