This post is sponsored by Plastics in Medical Devices.Plastics News’ Plastics in Medical Devices 2012 conference returns to Northeast Ohio next month, and offers plenty for all members of the medical device supply chain – from the latest in material, tooling and process developments to tips for collaborative innovation and for navigating the FDA approval [...]

Last week, the Technology Workgroup of the Massachusetts State HIE Advisory Committee was asked to address an interesting policy and technology question.When a payload of data (a clinical summary, a public health transaction, a lab result) is sent from provider to provider, what data should be included in the electronic envelope used in the sending [...]

Amid a growing crisis in financing treatments for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the developing world, an arm of the World Health Organization will meet in Geneva later this month to consider alternative ways of producing lower-cost drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tools to fight the those diseases in poor countries.A background report issued last month [...]

There is no question that the President wants a “single payer,” where hospitals and physicians are all paid from a single source, a single government-run program funded by general taxation. The fact that this leads to shortages, waiting lines, and rationing does not seem to concern those who have this single-minded goal.Before he became President, [...]

A newly recognized consequence of the epidemic of prescription opioid abuse in the U.S. is a huge increase in the number of babies born addicted. Most, though not all (for reasons not well understood) of the babies born to women who are chronic opioid users will go through withdrawal (called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, NAS). Doctors [...]

Is it possible that health care can become more effective, more personalized, more attuned to real health and wellness in a manner that truly benefits you the customer?At the recent health and wellness conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine there was a panel discussion moderated by Center [...]

I’ve written many times about the Bring Your Own Device movement (BYOD) and the need for increasing security controls. For years, we’ve controlled device settings on Blackberry devices with the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). We force passwords, encryption, and device memory wipes for ten failed passwords so that every user has enterprise enforced securityWith [...]

There are some patients we doctors never forget. They linger in our memories for various reasons. Often, it is their serious or unusual medical condition that stays with us. On other occasions, it is a zany or unique personality that we recall, even years later. Rarely, when the doctor-patient relationship becomes injured, then the patient [...]

Over the angry protests ofconsumer groups, Congress is moving rapidly ’ and in bipartisan fashion ’ to give drug and medical device companies an easier path to Food and Drug Administration approval for some products in exchange for sharply higher user fees to fund the agency.The five-year user fee reauthorization bill, which includes new fees [...]

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