Hospital-acquired infections and central line infections have been a significant focus within healthcare of late, with health systems undertaking myriad approaches to reduce or eliminate them, in turn bringing down costs and improving patient satisfaction and , seemingly, outcomes. But is the fear overblown? Karen Sullivan Sibert, MD a Los Angeles anesthesiologist, seems to think […]
If Ebola in the U.S. did one thing, it made hospitals prepared for the worst, with Dallas Presbyterian having the misfortune of being a cautionary tale. According to the CDC, state health officials have identified and designated 35 hospitals with Ebola treatment centers, with more expected in the coming weeks. Hospitals with Ebola treatment centers […]
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
President Obama’s recent executive order on antibiotic resistance has called attention to a growing problem that is threatening to undermine the extraordinary achievements of modern medicine. The President’s executive order and the accompanying “National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria” call for a broad range of measures to conserve the antibiotics we have and to develop […]
While the medical world races to treat Ebola, with vaccines and treatments being developed as quickly as possible, mobile technology and digital health could likewise go a long way in combating the virus. Ever since Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person in the U.S. to die from complications related to the virus in a Dallas […]
A new attack ad in the 2014 elections links cuts to budgets at the National Institutes for Health and the Centers for Disease Control to the spread of Ebola.
Responding almost immediately to the news of the Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola – the first person to do so within the U.S. – nurses across the country are adding to the growing chorus of concern over how hospitals and front-line healthcare workers deal with any possible exposure. The “vast majority” of nurses nationwide “don’t […]
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
Ebola is an infectious, often fatal virus. For more complete information, consult your own darkest paranoid nightmares. Nothing like a little satire from The Onion to call attention to how genuine concerns over a pandemic that’s new to the US can morph into hysteria all in the name of trying to provide as much information […]
For anyone who is skeptical about the power of big data to save us all – and solve all of healthcare’s cost/access/quality problems – this article will make you smile. According to a new analysis published in Science, Google’s Flu Trends is not so accurate after all. Apparently drawing conclusions from the 500 million Google […]
We are at the peak of the flu season _ and, based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, high flu activity is likely to continue for several weeks. So what can you do to minimize the damage of the flu to you and your environment? Quite a few things: _Don’t work […]
CDC had to furlough 8,754 people. They protected you yesterday, can’t tomorrow. Microbes/other threats didn’t shut down. We are less safe. — Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrFriedenCDC) October 2, 2013 While the shutdown puts as much as 70 percent of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on furlough, Athenahealth will use its big […]
Gabby Everett, the site director for BioLabs Pegasus Park, offered a tour of the space and shared some examples of why early-stage life science companies should choose North Texas.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A daily dose of powerful anti-HIV medicine helped cut the risk of infection with the AIDS virus by 49 percent in intravenous drug users in a Bangkok study that showed for the first time such a preventive step can work in this high-...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. outbreak of E. coli has sickened 24 people, with Farm Rich frozen food suspected as a likely source of the infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. The outbreak strain of Shiga toxin-produc...
Sequestration spares Medicaid and almost all of Medicare, but automatic cuts to other federal health care programs will make it more difficult for low-income Americans to get maternal and infant care, vaccinate their children, and receive treatment for...
I’ve written several posts about BIDMC’s use of “private cloud“approaches to host electronic records and gather community-wide quality data. Healthcare organizations have avoided the use of “public cloud” because of HIPAA/HITECH privacy concerns, lack of breach indemnification/data integrity guarantees, and the unwillingness of many cloud providers to sign business associate agreements. Although it has […]
A digital atlas that provides a state-by-state guide for tracking sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS has been produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC began developing the atlas in 2010 and it went live earlier this month. In emailed responses to questions, a spokeswoman for the CDC said the Atlas was […]