EKG by Telephone
Your parent has chest pains... is it a heart attack, or heartburn? What if your family doctor could get an expert opinion without your family having to go to the hospital? What if the hospital could read your EKG over the phone? This article talks about the use of a new handheld technology. See what other recent technologies you can find that might reduce the cost or increase the availability of good health care. As always, include your link and discuss something new.
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Women who are of age has to take regular x-rays of their breasts called mammograms. Typically mammograms are not accurate and according to this article, there is a switch from film versions of the mammograms to digital versions. This increases the accuracy of the mammograms, which in the long run benefits doctors and patients. Lumps and abnormalities in the breasts can be eliminated with more accuracy. A few of the negatives of the new digital mammogram is that it costs a lot more money, compared to the film versions. Digital mammograms can cost $200 to $350 more than film versions, however doctors insist that with the digital mammograms, things can be seen more clearly and fewer visits to the doctors office will benefit the patient in the long run. Another negative, but is only occurring now with the recent transition between film and digital, are the recalls of patients. Patients are freaking out because they are called back to the doctor's office, when in fact doctors are just taking extra pictures. Other than that, the transition from digital to film versions of the mammograms will help women out everywhere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/health/10scan.html?pagewanted=1&ref=research
In Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences Solutions:Dell eHealthcare Architecture, Dell makes medical technology infrastructure readily assessible to healthcare operations and makes it cheaper for health institutions to implement technology. This Dell eHealthcare Architecture allows for access to information when needed, information management and availability, and operational effectiveness as well as cost conrol. And here this answers the question of this blog; Dell's eHealthcare Architecture reduces the cost of IT technology for medical organizations and thus increases efficiency of the organization. So although this technically isn't an innovation that allows for cheaper costs and good healthcare directly, it does indirectly make for good healthcare when the organization runs more efficiently and perhaps cheaper costs when they can lower charges when they save in IT investments. Also, Dell Healthcare provides access to the latest healthcare innovations, and thus this does directly. So by having more organizations switch to more affordable technologies or even acquire them to begin with helps everyone overall. There is another innovation they mention in the Dell website, electronic prescriptions. Electronic prescriptions eliminate those illegible and POORLY WRITTEN prescriptions and allows patients to be attended and given prescription much faster and more efficiently. To learn more about this, follow the link to the Dell Healthcare website.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/sitelets/solutions/industry_application/pub_solutions/dell_ehealthcare_architecture?c=us&cs=RC968571&l=en&s=hea&~ck=anavml
It’s amazing to see how far technology has traveled now that we can get the reports of our EKG through telephone.
Technology has also helped patients who are in need of a heart transplant. A heart assist device helps patients stay alive until a heart donor is found. This device is connected to the left ventricle of the heart which pumps the blood and sends the blood out to the arteries. Therefore this device performs the task of the left ventricle. The device is implanted in the abdominal area which is connected to a cable through the skin that is attached to a computer. The device is portable so patients can live outside of the hospital. According to the data I found there are very few heart transplants compare to the number of patients who need it. Therefore this heart assist device is a great invention for giving a longer life span for patients.
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00656.html
http://www.texheartsurgeons.com/AssistDvcs.htm
The AIDS epidemic today is getting worse than ever before, especially in third world countries such as Africa. Unfortunately for poor people around the world, access to flow-cytometry machines (machines that help indicate the strength of your immune system) are very limited. But a group of scientists as Harvard University are now developing a device to do the same thing as a flow-cytometry that will be easy to access and cheap at the same time. It is a T-cell counter the size of a business card that will be easy to use. A person's T-cell count indicates how healthy one's immune system is which tells doctors when to take action and it also shows whether or not the medication is working properly. This new medical device will be much more convenient to use because "it does not require samples to be processed prior to testing." Hopefully these bioengineers can perfect this device in order to make a huge impact on the practice of HIV medicine.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19058/
Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, have built a cheap MRI machine that images how gas flows through the lungs and how much oxygen is being absorbed throughout lung tissue. They've used the system to study how lung function differs when lying down and sitting or standing up. They plan on using this machine to study asthma. Lung function could not be studied before by a conventional MRI machine because the patient is required to lie on their back. This machine would also help monitor the breathing of newborns without taking them out of their incubators. There are several other groups using similar "polarized gas" to create MRI images of the lungs, but their machines are commercially available and expensive. What Rosen and Walworth of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics offer is their own built, cheap, low-power MRI scanner. Thus, helping people see images of the lungs in an inexpensive machine.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20548/page1/
Known as the bone stimulator, it is known to heal fractures faster. The EXOGEN Bone Healing System uses low-intensity ultrasound to speed up the healing process of fresh, recent fractures up to 38% faster.
This treatment is often used for athletes and quickens the pace for healing. Because the bone stimulator speeds up the pace for healing, this allows individuals to return to work earlier. Thus, faster recovery becomes very valuable to all patients clinicians and health care providers.
http://medgadget.com/archives/2006/07/the_only_bone_s.html
Painful arthritis for the knee has been a nuisance to many. Now there is a solution to this irritable problem. This new system was created by MAKO Surgical Corp., of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. This technology creates a 3D model of the patient's knee. From this model the doctors can further acknowledge how much bone to remove, where to put implants and etc.
Another cool aspect of this new technology is the alarming sound. This pretty much resembles the game "Operation" because if the surgeon goes out of bounds, such as the area planned for surgery, the alarm will sound and the saw will automatically turn off.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20475/
Usually with hearing aids, it tends to overamplify sounds like from a click from a light switch to simply the sounds of a ceiling fan. In addition to this, people have to take them off when they shower and sleep, which proves to be a hassle for most. But now, doctors are heralding a new hearing aid mechanism called the Lyric. What this does is very similar to a hearing aid, except that it is implanted in one's ear near the canal. It can be worn 24 hours a day and its battery life is up to 4 months; pretty impressive considering that one would have to take off his or her's hearing aid EVERY time when hopping in the shower. When the battery dies, people can just replace it with a new one by taking out the Lyric by using a magnet. The bad part is that patients must pay up to $3,000 annually for a subscription fee when using the Lyric. Though, the good part is that it isn't as cumbersome as a hearing aid and is easily inserted into the ear. Furthermore, the Lyrics works well because it operates near the ear drum, which allows it to receive the full effect of sounds rather than amplifying it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/health/15well.html?ref=health
One of the most groundbreaking technologies developed in recent years is robotic surgery. The diVinci S HD Surgical System integrates 3D HD endoscopy and state of the art robotic technology to virtually extend the surgeon's eyes and hands into the surgical field. This technology is currently being used in cardiac surgery (mitral valve repairs), urology (prostate and kidney cancer removals), and general surgery (esophagectomy). UCI Medical Center is one of the leaders in robotic surgery. This technology allows for shorter hospital stays, better outcomes and less morbidity to patient's needing surgery with subsequent lower healthcare costs.
http://www.healthaffairs.uci.edu/urology/prostate/
http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/davinci_surgicalsystem/index.aspx
Clearly, technology is effectively providing easier and faster methods to prevent terminal illnesses. There are many invasive and noninvasive diagonistic tests that can help patients save time and money. They include EKG studies, Blood Tests, Holter Monitoring, Treadmill Stress Tests, M-mode(Two-Dimensional and Doppler), Echocardiograms,
Electronic Pacemaker Evaluations,
Transesophageal Echocardiography,
Cardiac Catheterization, and
Electrophysiologic Studies (EPS). Modern technology is continuousy improving to aid patients.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3039051
This technology hasn't come out yet, but President Bush plans to have health care records of patients electronically on the computer. Every year, patients die because of health care record errors. They get the wrong treatment or take the wrong medicine. Once this system is up and running, many more lives can be saved each year. With this system, doctors all over the world can have access to your records. If you go on a trip and your disease starts acting up, any doctor that you go to will know of your situation because they have access to your medical records. There are too many errors from hand written medical records. This future system will make checkups more efficient and there will be fewer errors for when the doctors prescribe medicine or apply treatment to a patient. This will increase the efficiency of health care significantly.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap3.html
Hygiene has always been a major concern among hospitals. With variety of sick patients gathering in a confined institution, pre-cautions and preventative measures are on constant demand. Patients and hospital personnel are highly susceptible to floating pathogens. Spread of diseases can be physically and economically devastating. A new British study demonstrates that bacteria is less likely to spread on copper-coated instruments (i.e. medical plates). This is especially important because more pathogens have become drug-resistant in the recent years.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/31/anti.germ.coatings.ap/index.html
Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that an implantable heart device reduces deaths by about one-third. It can be implanted in patients who have already suffered from a heart attack, and delivers and electrical shock to the heart when it detects an irregular heartbeat; similar to an external defibrillator. It's about the size of a small pager and is surgically implanted into one's chest. The device has been tested on a little over one thousand patients so as knowledge gets more widespread and the device improves it will be interesting to see if the results continue to show a one-third reduction of death. No other device has shown to reduce deaths related to heard disease by such a vast number.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1880935.stm
Nanotechnology may be the future in cancer cure. Nanospectra Biosciences will be studying this type of technology in humans. This new research has been successful in killing tumors in mice. The particles, called nanoshells, reveal the location of tumors and then destroy them in a burst of heat. Blood vessels surrounding tumors are leakier than those in healthy tissue, so the gold glated glass nano shells injected into the bloodstream tend to accumulate at tumor sites. Rats treated with this technology showed no signs of cancer returning in the mice who had their tumors destroyed.
The website for nanotechnology studies performed at Rice University:
http://nano-shells.com/
The new technology of GPs seems like very beneficial for those who have heart problems and constantly need to see the doctor. For many, they may not live near a hospital (especially in more rural places like England) and don't have quick access to a doctor and ECG. Although the GP device may not have proof that it directly helps heart patients, at least it cuts the cost of travelling to the hospital and paying for a ECG which may or may not reveal a heart problem.
A new telehealth technology that I found was In-Touch Health RP-7 robot that is described as a "telehealth system on wheels." Currently in use at the Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, it allows doctors who are away from the hospital to easily and instantly interact with patients, their families and staff via computers. By using a wireless, mobile "Remote Presence" with a computer and Internet connection, physicians can activate the robot and drive it towards the patient in order to assess the patient's condition as well as analyze physiologic data in real time, and even preside over a Code
Blue trauma alert (immediate resuscitation). Another advantage of using this robot is providing adequate information to perform
accurate assessments, diagnoses and start treatment within the first hour, so-called "golden" hour, of a patient's arrival. Although it's only being used in pediatric intensive care units, the eventual hope is to have this same technology be implemented in normal hospitals that treat adult patients.
The complete article (on page 6):
http://www.telehealthworld.com/images/TeleHealthWorldSpringEzine.pdf
Finding assets like IV pumps and wheelchairs in a hospital or a clinical setting is not an easy task, especially when a facility is spread out and contains several floors. Nurses can waste valuable time trying to track down equipment or finding resources, which is delaying patient care and making the costs go up. AT&T's Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID technology, allows organizations of health care to track devices using wireless tags or transponders. Nowadays, health care facilities depend on efficiency, convenience, and a fast response. To better improve the speed and accuracy of tracking inventory and other resources, they are turning to these wireless devices such as the RFID. This site has other technologies for health care such as the digital health one which contains a cool video for it as well.
http://www.corp.att.com/healthcare/
An interesting, relatively new technology is breast thermography. This form of intervention appears to be useful in detecting breast cancers even when digital mammograms may be reported normal. Breast thermography detects patterns of heat produced from the increased circulation produced by abnormal metabolic activity in cancer cells. The use of thermography allows for earlier diagnosis of breast cancer and more cures in treatment.
http://www.gsmcweb.com/?page_id=81
Doctors often have to deal with patients even while they are not at the office. Microsoft is helping buy offering technologies that allow doctors to access information and files on their patiens even when they are thousands of miles away on vacation. This technology also allows doctors to colaborate with other doctors on tough to solve cases and get new information about new diseases.
To find out more about this technology, you can visit the microsoft webs site:
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/providers/businessvalue/housecalls/housecalls_mobility.mspx
I think that the development of cost-saving new technologies in the healthcare industry are really important escpecially since the Baby Boomers from the 1940s are now pervading the healthcare system and costing tax payers a significant amount of money. For example, a new technology known as the atomic magnetometer provides an alternative to the conventional, costly MRI scans. The atomic magnetometer is hand-held and less expensive than its conventional counterpart not only because it can be bought for tens of thousands of dollars (whereas the conventional MRIs cost millions of dollars) but it also doesn't need a bulky cooling system that is hard to maintain or huge magnets to detect movements of the nuclie that lie inside the body's water molecules.
In addition to being less expensive, the atomic magnetometer takes seconds to compile and image of the movements of the nuclei in the body's tissue, whereas the MRI machine takes twenty minutes and requires that the patient remain completely frozen for that long period of time.
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/ns-hfp040605.php
A breakthrough has been discovered in the research of Huntington's Disease. Huntington's Disease currently affects about 8 in every 100,000 people and is associated with memory loss, disorientation, loss of cognitive functioning, and poor coordination. An automated touch screen has been developed to test intellectual ability in mice with Huntington's disease. The mice being tested were separated into two groups, those with the HD gene mutation and those without, and the procedure involves the mice touching the touch-sensitive screen with their noses. Reward was given to the mice that touched the correct stimulus and punishment was given to the mice that touched the incorrect one. As a result, over time both groups of mice, with and without the disease, learned to touch the correct stimulus despite their motor problems caused by Huntington's Disease.
This is a great improvement from the traditional methods of testing for intellectual decline. The previous methods all required a high level of physical performance that the mice lacked due to the effects of Huntington's disease such as poor coordination. This new technological discovery will hopefully help researchers find a cure for Huntington's Disease and many other neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and prion. This will eventually increase the availability of good health care as researchers are now able to learn more about Huntington's Disease with more effective and simpler technology.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/53640.php
It is amazing to see how technology has made things more and more portable over the years. One such device is the AED or the Automated External Defibrillator, which is basically a portable version of the large and cumbersome "defib" machines used in most hospitals. This piece of technology was first used in the field by the U.S. military and has since moved into the civilian sector.
Researchers, doctors and scientists have made this device so simple to use that they are placed in many public places so an individual can simply pick one up and use it if in an emergency. This has become a great alternative when faced with a situation where people can't perform CPR or can't get to a hospital in time.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/1820986.html?page=1
It is known today that patients tend to lie on their EKG exams. So some doctors prefer that their patients perform a stress test. They attach the electrodes to the patient while he or she is performing some kind of moderate exercise. Some patients must ride a stationary bike or walk on a treadmill. Exercising while attached to the EKG machine gives the technician or doctor a better understanding of the heart function pattern during the physical strain. The stress test isnt necessarily a new machine but on the website
http://www.ekg-machines.com/articles/EKG-Technology/Modern_EKG_Machines.html
it says that it is a new method in making the EKG more reliable. THe stress test measuring the heart's electrical function during a strenuous exercise cycle is helpful for the doctor.
An EKG may also be paired with an aimgaing technology that shows changes in the size or thickness of the heart, which is evidence for an underlying disease.
"If a rhythm is too slow, not enough blood will be pumped to the brain. If it is too fast, the heart's ability to fill between beats is impaired, and again, not enough blood gets to the brain," Dr. Reiffel says.
http://www.columbiasurgery.org/edu/tips_ekg.html
Patients who have intermittend events the ambulatory EKG allows the physicians to measure the patient's electrical heart signals when symptoms begin to occur. The Holder recording brings the EKG to the patient because it is attached to a portable device that records every heartbeat over a 24 hour period. The patient will also be asked to record their activities and symptoms so the physician can correlate data and activities. "A Holter recording allows physicians to see transient rhythm disturbances that may have prognostic importance," Dr. Reiffel says.
For the patients who has symptoms less frequently a memory loop recorderscan can be worn for weeks at a time. It is similar to the Holter recorder but smaller and samples heartbeats continuously and stores data only when the patient activates it. It catches the event and the 30 or 60 seconds before it. When a patient wears it, and starts to feel dizzy or feel palpitations, he could just push a button.
Some devices are even the size of a credit card and are carried at months at a time. They can be held against their skin so the back of it containing the electrodes can record the cardiogram. Some companies are now manufacturing similar monitors that fit inside a wristwatch: by simply touching two buttons on either side of the watch, the patient activates the device to record the cardiogram. Such devices can store data for up to two months. The newer memory loop recorders even auto-trigger for an atrial fibrillation, one of the most common disorders, and one that may produce no symptoms, and thus no reason for a patient to self-activate.
These new inventions are amazing and they continue to get better every year.
http://www.columbiasurgery.org/edu/tips_ekg.html
This news article caught my attention: Curry ingredient may cut cardiovascular risks.
It is obvious that Curry is not a technology, but it is something that can help reduce the cost of medications and definitely increase for better health care. For those of you who don’t know what curry is, it is an ingredient used as spice in foods. Curry has Curcumin that can reduce heart enlargement and may lower the risk of heart failure.
It is still under research waiting to see if human clinical trials support their findings that curcumin can help reduce cardiovascular risks.
This website, http://www.revolutionhealth.com/news/?id=hd-612975 , mentions that curcumin-based treatments “may provide a safe and inexpensive new option for patients with heart enlargement.” Researchers have tested in mice with enlarged heart and found that it could “prevent and reverse the condition, restore heart function, and reduce scar formation”. It is amazing to learn that curry “works directly in the cell nucleus by preventing abnormal unraveling of the chromosome under stress and preventing excessive abnormal protein production”. Once the study is clinically approved, maybe we’ll divert in another direction and see if it does improve the healthcare by reducing the cost of medications for cardiovascular problems. I do not want to come off rude by saying this…but does that mean that Indian people would have an healthier heart if their main dish involves curry? I do not know, but it would be good news for them if it were true.
http://ca.com/us/press/release.aspx?cid=82684
Carefex and CA recently partnered together to provide better health care by creating a single sign-on system for doctors so they have access to a detailed account of their patient’s health history. The new system allows doctors to sign in to the system once and browse through a patient’s entire history of health data in order to seek out relevant data to make well informed decisions when it comes to treating or diagnosing the patient. Giving doctors the chance to obtain easy and secure access to a patient’s overall health background will increase the productivity of the doctors, allowing them to analyze any obvious health patterns they see in the profile. Having quick access to a patient’s health history will also enable doctors to provide accurate care for their patients since they will be able to see in detail all the problems a patient has faced and all the treatments they have had in the past. This unique profile system allows doctors to have a very clear profile of their patients before even meeting them, which permits them to make well-informed decisions when treating or diagnosing the patient.
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