News
Secret Hospital Charges Now Revealed, Wide Disparities
05/08/2013
Hospital Prices No Longer Secret As New Data Reveals Bewildering System, Staggering Cost Differences
By Jeffrey Young and Chris Kirkham
When a patient arrives at Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey requiring treatment for the respiratory ailment known as COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she faces an official price tag of $99,690.
Less than 30 miles away in the Bronx, N.Y., the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center charges only $7,044 for the same treatment, according to a massive federal database of national health care costs made public on Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »
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Zeo’s demise, a wakeup call for Sleep Wellness?
03/19/2013
This article is based on a LinkedIn discussion that was started by Paul Sonnier, founder of the Digital Health discussion group.
Zeo has closed shop. Mentioned here & here and shown in the video below, Zeo is the company that provided a well known direct-to-consumer (DTC) sleep monitoring and coaching system that claimed to take the “science of sleep out of the lab and put it into your hands.” While speculation abounds as to why this happened (see comments in this group discussion: http://bit.ly/ZeoDHDiscuss), it does highlight some of the challenges in this dynamic consumer digital health market segment, which represents 70 million people in the US alone. Read the rest of this entry »
A Place at the Table – about Poverty, Hunger & Health
02/27/2013
Spread the word today! This important documentary is coming to movie theaters, YouTube and on-demand on March 1.
A Place at the Table shows us how hunger poses serious economic, social, health and cultural implications for our nation, and how the problem of hunger can be solved once and for all, with your help.
Now think about the dramatic role that a proper diet can play in decreasing obesity, diabetes, chronic illness, food allergies, and healthcare costs by improving the health of Americans.
As Dr. Wahls says in her TED video, “Hunter-Gatherer diet feeds Mitochondria & Brain Cells.” “You’ll pay one way or another” – either pay now for a nutritious diet that improves your productivity and quality of life, or pay more later for medical intervention and long-term healthcare. This concept applies individually or nationally as portrayed in A Place at the Table.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Mobile Health App Certification
02/27/2013
PRESS RELEASE
Happtique Publishes Final Standards for
Mobile Health App Certification Program
Association of American Medical Colleges, CGFNS International and
Intertek to Serve as Content and Technical Review Partners
NEW YORK, NY – Feb. 27, 2013 – Happtique, an mHealth solutions company, today announced the publication of the final Standards it will use to certify apps under the Happtique Health App Certification Program (HACP). The HACP will help healthcare providers and consumers easily identify medical, health, and fitness apps that deliver credible content, contain safeguards for user data, and function as described. The final Certification Standards and associated Performance Requirements, which assess operability, privacy, security, and content, can be read at http://www.happtique.com/app-certification/. Read the rest of this entry »
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Printing Your Own Medicine… and Organs
02/17/2013
Chemist Lee Cronin is working on a 3-D printer that, instead of objects, is able to print molecules. It has exciting long-term potential: printing your own personalized medicine using chemical inks. The 3-minute TED talk below paints a fascinating view of the , but a great many issues remain. Following the video are two related TED talks with more near-term impact.
My reaction
I was amused at the comments on TED.com and had to add my own…
So will the use of illegal narcotics and abuse of prescription drugs explode? Where will we buy the “ink,” and can it be ordered online? Will the cartridges be refillable? Will we need a new constitutional amendment to ensure “the right to bear printers” or the “right to buy ink?” Who will profit from this new industry and lobby for the new laws and regulatory oversight (or lack of it)? As with any disruptive technology, there are many new questions, and there will be many incumbents fighting to preserve the status quo. Read the rest of this entry »
Not Enough Doctors for Baby Boomers
02/13/2013
With over 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, there may not be enough doctors to care for them as they age. As Seth Doane reports in this CBS News report, over the next ten years there may be 40,000 fewer doctors than needed. Will technology take up the slack? It may have to, and that’s one reason I started Modern Health Talk – to discuss those technologies.
The two-minute video is filled with lots of new statistics that I added to
our growing list about the Healthcare Problem & Opportunity.
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Smartphone app lets you monitor lung health
01/31/2013
 photo by: S. Patel, Univ. of Washington SpiroSmart is a research app to let people test their lung function using only a smartphone. |
App lets you monitor lung health using only a smartphone
By Hannah Hickey, University of Washington
9/12/2012 | People suffering from asthma or other chronic lung problems are typically only able to get a measure of their lung function at the doctor’s office a few times a year by blowing into a specialized piece of equipment. More frequent testing at home could detect problems earlier, potentially avoiding emergency room visits and hospitalization.
A new tool from researchers at the University of Washington, UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s hospital lets people monitor their lung function at home or on the go simply by blowing into their smartphones. A paper presented this month at the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing showed results that came within 5 percent of commercial devices, meaning it already meets the medical community’s standards for accuracy.
“There’s a big need in the pulmonary community to make testing cheaper and more convenient,” said lead researcher Shwetak Patel, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. “Other people have been working on attachments for the mobile phone that you can blow into. We said, ‘Let’s just try to figure out how to do it with the microphone that’s already there.’”
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High Tech Advancing Future of Personalized Cancer Care
01/19/2013
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, IBM to Collaborate
in Applying Watson Technology to Help Oncologists
IBM Watson combined with MSKCC’s clinical knowledge will help
physicians access and integrate latest science and knowledge
New York City – 22 Mar 2012: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and IBM have agreed to collaborate on the development of a powerful tool built upon IBM Watson in order to provide medical professionals with improved access to current and comprehensive cancer data and practices. The resulting decision support tool will help doctors everywhere create individualized cancer diagnostic and treatment recommendations for their patients based on current evidence.
What the Fork – $100?
01/17/2013
Why do we need a smart fork, you may ask? Well, here’s the hype…
Studies show that people who eat slower eat 11% fewer calories and digest food better, so HAPILABS introduced 2 devices at CES: HAPIfork and HAPItrack. The dishwasher safe HAPIfork got immense press coverage, including articles in Consumer Reports and Bon Appetit, as well as placement on the Stephen Colbert Show (see video below).
This latest electronic gadget functions like a friendly shock collar by paying attention to when you eat, how many bites you take, and the intervals between each bite, vibrating to tell you when you’re eating too fast or too much. The goal is to encourage you to slow down, chew your food, improve your digestion, transform the way you eat, and… enjoy life more. HAPIfork then communicates with your smartphone so you can track your eating habits or share them with friends online. Read the rest of this entry »
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CES 2013 prominently features HealthSpot Station
01/16/2013
“Real doctors. Real medicine. Really convenient.”
HealthSpot Station was prominently featured in the central lobby just as you entered the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2013, an honor that only the most interesting companies get.
Doctors and patients meet face-to-face like they always have, only in this case, the face-to-face is virtual: the doctor is in his home or office; the patient is seated in the kiosk; and the kiosk is located in a retail store. The HealthSpot Station kiosk allows board-certified doctors to conduct remote diagnosis and treatment using high-def videoconferencing and digital medical devices that appear behind locked doors when needed.
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