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Credit Agencies Mining Social Networks To Verify Identities and Assess Consumer Credit Worthiness
Well, what’s the next step after they have ran their analytics and made their decisions…they sell the data, error ridden and all. Again it’s the wild wild west and information can be real or it can be fake. I somehow think that some of this will end up moving more folks away from social networks. …
St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica Gets Sold To Another Catholic Healthcare System, Providence Health and Services, Bids From Patrick Soon-Shiong, UCLA & Others Didn’t Work Out
Now the question is will billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong still invest all the money he committed, or will he look for another hospital? Who knows. Providence is not for profit and operates 5 states with 27 hospitals. Their headquarters is located in Washington state. St. Johns Hospital Saga Co…
FDA Approves Medical Device From AMES Technologies for Muscle and Joint Rehab After A Stroke or Relatibve Spinal Cord Injuries
Thus far the website does not have a lot of information posted being the approval just took place with the FDA. It even has audit tables to give insurers and others progress reports on patient progress. I guess this way with the reports there should be no question on the progress made by each pati…
Montefiore Medical Center Buys Two More Hospitals Buried in Financial Woe In New York
One of the hospitals, Sound Shore just filed bankruptcy and blames Medicare Cuts. Approval still needs to be given by the court and if so Montefiore would assume the Sound Shore buildings and other assets and operate the two hospitals. Emergency rooms are to be remodeled as part of the deal. Ot…
FDA Rules Physicians Now Must File An Investigational New Drug Application Before Proceeding With a Fecal Transplant For CDiff
This has been around for a while and basically is the last resort for anyone suffering from CDiff, but it works. I wrote about it back in 2007 so the transplant I guess is a “new drug”? The feces for transplant of course would be new (grin) and there’s no guarantee the FDA will approve the process…
Kaiser Permanente Working On Deal to Sell Their Ohio Operations to Catholic Health Partners–Not Making Any Money Here
This is interesting and will affect about 80,000 members. Catholic Health Partners is the largest health system in the area with 24 hospitals. It may take a while to iron out all the provisions, etc. The Health Plan is expected to be given a new name. The reason for selling this division appears…
I had to somewhat laugh when I read this as 15 years ago even before I learned a stick of code I was working in an outside sales job for a Fortune 500 company and my sales manager literally thought I was terrorizing him with my Excel Spreadsheet expense accounts:) This was long before there was spe…
FDA Approves Two New Drugs for Treatment of Advanced Skin Cancer-Melanoma
Tafinlar and Mekinist,are the names of the two new drugs. Mekinist,is a protein inhibitor associated with cancerous tumors. Tafinlar belongs to a class of drugs called BRAF inhibitors. There’s also a test approved by the FDA that identifies to determine of the melanoma cells have the mutations in…
HMA Hospital CEO To Retire Amid Pressure From Hedge Fund Glenview Capital While Investigation Over Admission Procedures Continues With 3rd Party Software Vendor
This is a lot of pressure and the CEO might be stressed to the max with everything piling in here. Not only do they have the battle and investigation over the admission rates, but now add in the Hedge Fund who wants more of the money action. HMA operates 71 hospitals in 15 states. Within Florida,…
Digital Currency–Liberty Reserve Money Laundering Website–“You Can Do Anything With Software”, Until You Get Caught….
This is a little off topic but worth mentioning as this all took place on the web with criminal activities and as the article states there were some legitimate clients in here too who maybe saw the opportunity to transfer anonymous funds and didn’t realize how the whole thing operated, they just wan…
BigData Modeling and Analytics Goes Into Mass Production Based on SaaS Machine Learning Platform to Create Predictive Models in Minutes–Accountability, Accuracy Still Needed By All Means – “Models Without Borders”
Ok, pay attention here as machine learning and analytics continues to grow as the main clients here thus far are healthcare, financial service, and insurance providers. This should come as no surprise as we all know insurers use analytics all the time and have a long extensive history of doing so, …
DOD Says 20 Commercial Software Vendors Capable of Fixing ALTHA Medical Records–Relying on Market Research Opinions Could be Dangerous With Current Day Complexities
I read this article and immediately went to the part to where the recommendation came from and again with as big as the DOD system is and the complexities it immediately created a cloud of doubt as the department would be much better off to get additional information from an area outside of “market …
Quality Systems (NextGen EHR Parent Company) Reports 4th Quarter Loss–Goodwill Impairment Charge
Impairment charges are something fairly new in accounting with balance sheets and Investopedia says this: "Impairment charge" is the new term for writing off worthless goodwill. These charges started making headlines in 2002 as companies adopted new accounting rules and disclosed huge goodwill writ…
Allscripts Files Another Lawsuit, This One Is All About “Noise” Control in Chicago
Allscripts contends their offices or rather their employees working in their offices at the Merchandise Mart can’t function due to all the noise being created as Google is moving in to the top floors and the landlord is preparing and remodeling for their new tenant. As it reads, noise is not addres…
Valeant Pharmaceuticals from Canada to Buy Bausch and Lomb for $8.7 Billion
Bausch and Lomb had originally plotted an IPO and has changed directions with this acquisition. Interesting that half the purchase price here is to get rid of the company debt. Valeant used to be known as ICN, a US corporation years ago and with a merge of another company back in 2010, they moved …
Doctors in Germany Claim Major Breakthrough in Treating/Curing Child with Cerebral Palsy Using Stem Cells
The boy had been given injections of umbilical cord blood and his symptoms improved tremendously from being in a vegetable state. Now he has been able to learn how to talk and to move. The umbilical blood used was his own, stored from the time of his birth. The chances of survival were minimal…
Human Stem Cell Cloning Study Had Errors That Resulted From the “Rush” to Publish
The paper may have errors but the results are real said the professor as he personally made them himself. He takes full responsibility for the mistakes made and there will be a new release coming forthwith fixing the mistakes. BD A blockbuster study in which U.S. researchers reported that they…
FDA Approves First HbA1c Test to Diagnose Diabetes
As the article states, current tests have been approved to only monitor glucose levels and now with this approved test there’s a somewhat one stop test to do it. A value of 6.5% will indicated the condition. The text is manufactured by Roche. BD The FDA has approved the first glycated hemog…
Healthcare Supply Chain Association Launches Website to List Medical Device Companies and Suppliers Who Pass Device Tax On To Hospitals–One Large Hospital EHR Software Vendor Included
I found this to be very interesting to be able to view the website and see the list. Being I write about a lot of Health IT here and with the huge profits made by Cerner, it somewhat surprised me to see them on the list. As we all know Cerner is one of the largest software suppliers of electronic …
Licensing and Excise Taxing Data Sellers, Facial Recognition Yet One More Tool Used To Secure & Match Data - The Epidemic, Billions in Profits for Banks and US Corporations Using Killer Algorithms to Further Erode Consumer Privacy
If you missed the recent report by 60 Minutes, this is very much worth watching. Facial recognition technologies is growing quickly and getting more accurate all the time. With using 3D modeling, matches are made to find the identity of individuals. “Faceprint” is the new word to be aware of. As…
FDA Notifies mHealth Company They Want To Discuss The UChek App and Possibly Pursue Requesting a 510(k) Application for Approval
As mentioned the device and the $40 kit that goes along with the app sold on the App Store was featured at a TED Long Beach Convention earlier this year. The FDA wants a chance to discuss and Biosense has stated they will work with the FDA and at the link below I thought it would be one that the FD…
Cancer Drug to Treat Alzheimer’s Fails to Perform as Studies Can’t Replicate
Targretin was the drug that was used and as the article below states that based on the fact that it eliminated plaque behind Alzheimer's from the brains of mice, it did not work in the real world. Trials were set up and some were able to get the prescription for the cancer drug, “off label” to trea…
