Mediformatica's Feeds Aggregator

A Modern Hospital Website

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:39:13 PDT

John D. Halamka is an exceptional health blogger and Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School. He just blogged about the new website of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I know I always use Mayo Clinic as a perfect example about how to create a proper web 2.0 coverage for a hospital, but this one is another good example.

Halamka blogged about the features as well:

Blogs – Uses a SiteCore provided blogging module
Chat – a commercial application called Cute Chat from CuteSoft.
BIDMC TV (news and information videos produced by BIDMC)- Hosted by BrightCove.
Medical Edge (videos about innovation produced by BIDMC)- Hosted by BrightCove.
Podcast Gallery – Hosted on BIDMC servers.
Health Quizzes – created using a commercial application called SelectSurvey.NET from ClassApps.
Social Networking – entirely hosted by outside service providers (Facebook/Twitter/You Tube).
Secure patient web pages for communication with their families – a commercial application provided by CarePages.
Conditions A-Z – a web-based encyclopedia branded for BIDMC using commercial reference provided by Ebsco.
Search Engine – We’re using a Google Appliance

Medical research experts on Wikipedia

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:29:56 PDT

Though I haven’t been extremely busy on Wikipedia lately, I’ve been an administrator there for 3 years. I’m always glad when medical professionals come to edit articles, improve the quality and insert proper references into the medical entries. Yesterday, I saw this:

The National Institutes of Health and the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates the Wikipedia® online encyclopedia, are joining forces to make health and science information more accessible and reliable. This collaboration is the first of its kind for both organizations.

In these days when the number of page requests for flu or influenza is rising, it’s even more important to cover medical issues properly. From Wikimedia Blog:

Kevin Pho from Kevin, MD wrote in a recent article:

This isn’t to say patients shouldn’t research their medical conditions to become better informed. But it’s imperative that patients not rely on Wikipedia as the primary source of their health research. Websites sponsored by the government, academic medical centers, or professional medical societies all have more authoritative information that can be relied upon.

As Wikipedians always say, Wikipedia is a perfect place to start your research, but should never be the one you finish your search with.

Code Red? No. Just what the doctor ordered.

hlsblog — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:56:20 PDT

In the July/August edition of Washington Monthly author Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation , delivers what I think is a misguided punch to the commercial software industry. His article, “ Code Red—how software companies...(read more)

Dr. Bill Roper, dean of the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, comments on the White House Regional Health Reform Forum in Greensboro, N.C.

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:22:57 PDT

Dr. Bill Roper, dean of UNC's School of Medicine gives his thoughts on the White House Regional Forum on Health Reform held in Greensboro, N.C., March 31, 2009. He discusses the importance of continuing the healthcare reform conversation from the grassroots level to Congress.

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Certification Meeting Leaves CCHIT Fate Unclear

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:14:31 PDT

The task of developing and maintaining certification criteria should be separate from the function of actually testing software or organizations against that criteria, and there should be more than one organization that performs such testing, according to the HIT Policy Committee Workgroup on Certification and Adoption, which delivered its recommendations to the overall committee today. However, apart from endorsing five high-level recommendations, the overall workgroup did not endorse the presentation in total, leaving the fate of CCHIT unclear. The most vocal critic of the suggestions was Neal Calman of the Institute for Family Health, who expressed concern that such a change in process would create paralysis in the market just when providers must embark on their HIT journey, if they are to qualify for HITECH funds. The five accepted goals were: Focus Certification on Meaningful Use Leverage Certification process to improve progress on Security, Privacy, and Interoperability Improve objectivity and transparency of the certification process Expand Certification to include a range of software sources: Open source, self-developed, etc. Develop a Short-Term Transition plan In addition to advocating that more than one organization be eligible to perform certification testing, the workgroup suggested that HHS Certification criteria should be developed by ONC with the involvement of NIST, which would assist in developing a “comprehensive process for conformity assessment including testing, certification, accreditation and surveillance.” The workgroup further suggested that the new certification criteria be limited in scope, focused directly on meeting the meaningful use definition, also presented to the committee today. To bridge the current CCHIT certification criteria with the new HHS Certification criteria, gaps would be identified and published. The workgroup stated that it could have such a gap analysis ready by Labor Day.

Top Blogs on Twitter

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:38:15 PDT

Technorati has been tracking the entire blogosphere for years, but trends are changing. Now the biggest information stream is on Twitter so here is Twittorati that tracks the tweets from the highest authority bloggers, starting with the entire Technorati Top 100 and soon including many more of the web’s most influential voices.

Click here to see the medicine-related tweets on Twittorati.

What’s on the Web? (16 July, 2009)

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:28:38 PDT

Patients should store health records with Google or Microsoft (Guardian)

Hand Powered DNA Separation System for Remote Point of Care (Medgadget)

In order to aid with disease diagnosis in remote places, researchers at Boston University have built a prototype pump device to separate DNA out of a sample of blood. The SNAP (System for Nucleic Acid Preparation) is powered by a bicycle-like pump and may one day make it easy for local clinicians to separate, bottle, and ship a sample to a clinic with sequencing technology for analysis.

200+ Health and Medical Accounts Worth Following on Twitter

10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter

Have you seen the Open Medicine wiki?

This project explores the use of a wiki as an online collaborative tool for improving and updating peer-reviewed systematic reviews. Readers are invited to edit the article either by adding, deleting or modifying its contents. The effort has been supported by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology in Health (CADTH) and Open Medicine. The scoping reviews found on the Open Medicine website and the wiki are derivations of an original systematic review funded by CADTH and completed by Foresights Links.

Medical 2.0 Index: Medical 2.0 is offering you the largest and the most comprehensive database regarding the Health 2.0 arena.

3D Radiology

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:11:55 PDT

Medgadget just posted about the Flickr images of the Stanford Radiology 3D Imaging Laboratory.

I met the Swedish founder of Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV) at Scifoo last weekend. They are creating exceptional radiology images. I wish I could study anatomy with those images. It would have been much much easier.

Twitter Power Tools for Health Activists: Slideshow

berci.mesko@gmail.com (Bertalan Meskó) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:03:26 PDT

(Via Med 2.0)

UnitedHealth Group and Cisco Launch Connected Care

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:46:07 PDT

UnitedHealth Group’s national care provider network, including 590,000 physicians and care professionals and more than 4,900 hospitals, combined with Cisco’s industry-leading video conferencing and other collaborative network technologies, will help connect patients more easily with primary care physicians, specialists and hospitals

Electronic Health Records - Part of Family Medicine's Future

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:45:45 PDT

The project is claimed to be the first of its type to take advantage of the GoogleHealth online system, with the ability to import health information directly from GoogleHealth, Google's on-line health compendium. The results may be accessed by user's approved medical health professionals or kept completely private

More Connectivity Options and Customers for Intel Health Guide

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:45:24 PDT

In order to give payers and providers more flexibility in deploying the Intel Health Guide, the system is now available to connect patients and their health care teams via multiple connectivity options including cable/DSL broadband, cellular wireless and residential phone service

‘Snip Doctor’ Provides Spot Test Results for Specific DNA Sequences

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:44:56 PDT

The SNP Dr is a breakthrough silicon chip-based device that offers fast and accurate spot test results for specific DNA sequences that indicate how we are likely to respond to certain drugs. The device is currently being trialed in partnership with global pharmaceutical company Pfizer

Dermatology Service Reminds Patients of Appointments via Text Messages

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:44:34 PDT

The text messaging service will be used to automatically send appointment reminders to the mobile phones of the relevant out-patients

State Privacy Rules Reduce Electronic Medical Sharing by 24%

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:44:00 PDT

States that have passed privacy laws restricting the ability of hospitals to disclose patient information have seen the sharing of electronic medical records suffer by more than 24%, according to the Management Insights feature in the current issue of Management Science

Very Mobile Eye Hospital

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:43:29 PDT

The Flying Eye Hospital program, at the invitation of Kenya’s Ministry of Medical Services, conducted an intensive skills exchange program with eye care professionals from around the country from June 2-12, which resulted in 155 patients being screened and 58 patients receiving treatment

Meaningful Use Proposal Revealed

(author unknown) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:26:58 PDT

By 2011, at least 10 percent of all orders processed in a hospital must be entered through CPOE to qualify that institution for CMS incentives under the HITECH Act, according to a proposed matrix of meaningful use released today by ONC’s HIT Policy Committee. Other 2011 hospital requirements are: implementation of drug-drug, drug-allergy, and drug-formulary checks maintenance of up-to-date problem lists of current and active diagnoses based on ICD-9 or SNOMED incorporation of lab-test results into EHR as structured data reporting of hospital quality measures to CMS implementation of one clinical decision rule related to a high-priority hospital condition providing of patients with an e-copy of their health information capability to exchange key clinical information (eg. discharge summary, procedures, problem lists, medication lists, allergies, test results) among providers of care In another major development, the committee recommended that incentives be paid according to an ‘adoption year’ timeframe rather than a calendar year timeframe. “Under this scenario, qualifying for the first-year incentive payment would be assessed using the 2011 Measures. The payment rate and phaseout of payments would follow the calendar dates in the statute, but qualifying for incentives would use the ‘adoption-year’ approach,” the committee stated.

CCHIT fate could be decided today

Dana Blankenhorn — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:05:16 PDT

Reformers like David Kibbe and Fred Trotter continue to sound alarmed in their statements to the media, but what I call the Markle Letter, emphasizing the importance of getting meaningful feedback to line physicians as the basis for subsidies, may yet cut out the vendor group.

BrainNavigator, An Online Atlas to Browse Brain Structures

Michael — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:44:58 PDT

Elsevier just released the official version of the BrainNavigator online virtual brain browser, an application developed in cooperation with the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Featuring a 3D interactive video interface, as well as traditional slices from a variety of animal brains, the software is designed for quick identification of neuroanatomical structures for scientists studying the organ.

Here's an Elsevier video giving a tour of the BrainNavigator:

Press release: Elsevier Launches Official Version of BrainNavigator...

Product page: BrainNavigator: Interactive Atlas and 3D Brain Software for Research, Structure Analysis, and Education...

Medgadget archives: Allen Brain Atlas...

Ultrasound Used for Taxonomy of "Clicking" Languages

Michael — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:37:28 PDT

Africa is home to a few languages that utilize clicking sounds, and linguists have had a problem finding a way to classify and identify them. Amanda Miller from Cornell University decided to try an innovative approach that uses a portable ultrasound to actually record the movement of the tongue. Judging by the pictures, looks like they were using the GE LOGIQ Book XP.

Details from the National Science Foundation:

The African languages studied by Miller use a series of consonants called "clicks" which are unlike most consonants in that they are produced with air going into the mouth rather than out. The N|uu clicks, produced using both the front and back of the tongue, are difficult to characterize.

"When we say 'k' or 't,' the sound is produced by air breathing out of our lungs," said Miller. "But click sounds are produced by breathing in and creating suction within a cavity formed between the front and back parts of the tongue. While linguists knew this, most didn't want to accept it was something people controlled." So they loosely classified these click consonants using imprecise groupings.

"For nearly a century, some of these sounds fell into an imprecise catch-all category that included every type of modification ever reported in a click language," said Miller. "The movements of the tongue at the front of the mouth were quite accurately classified. But tongue movements at the back part of the mouth were not classified properly."

The reason was that prior tools were either too large to carry to fieldwork situations in Southern Africa, or too unsafe. Ultrasound imaging changed that by allowing Miller's research team to use safer, faster, non-invasive technology in the field to view the back part of the tongue.

Early ultrasound tools captured images only at about 30 frames per second, and thus are not able to keep up with the tongue's speed in fast sounds like clicks. The new ultrasound imaging tool is capable of capturing more than 125 frames per second, producing clearer images.

Miller and her colleagues used the high-speed ultrasound imaging to group the clicks more accurately.

Audio slideshow of the project...

Side image: Ouma Hannie Koerant, a speaker of N|uu, a severely endangered click language spoken by fewer than 10 people in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, prepares to have her mouth and tongue imaged as she pronounces N|uu words. The ultrasound stabilization headset anchors an ultrasound probe in the same spot under her chin throughout the recording session.

Abstract in Journal of the International Phonetic Association: Differences in airstream and posterior place of articulation among NIuu clicks...

NSF press release: Classifying "Clicks"...