The Mayo Clinic will work with a precision medicine company to establish and research a genomics-based care protocols approach. The renowned delivery system has signed a license contract with 2bPrecise, a Pittsburgh-based company that gives an EHR-agnostic cloud-based precision medicine platform.
The partners will utilize the 2bPrecise platform and combine it with Mayo Clinic’s knowledge and electronic phenotyping algorithms to further establish clinical protocols, which will be incorporated into the platform.
Initial work will be utilized to apply research to measure outcomes in sufferers who have cardiovascular genetic disease.
The two agencies will start their collaboration by bringing Mayo Clinic's algorithm for FH into the 2bPrecise platform to derive insights from combined clinical and genomic research information. The collaboration targets to boost clinical researchers with the capability to test and validate new protocols based on clinical-genomic insights, with the ultimate aim of making these protocols available for optimized decision-making at the point of care.
The 2bPrecise platform harmonizes clinical and genomic data to extract patient-specific insights and present them in an actionable way to the clinician, within their present EHR workflow, overlaying knowledge sources to instruct and enable clinical genomics at point of care.
Executives of 2bPrecise claim that they selected Mayo Clinic for this work due to their strong subject matter expertise and work in the area of clinical genomics, particularly their research in familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), and for their desire to share their care algorithms more broadly with the medical community.
“Mayo Clinic has a very robust genomics research discipline,” claims Assaf Halevy, founder and CEO of 2bPrecise. “We’re excited to collaborate with premier agencies such as Mayo Clinic to advance genomic science and help make it clinically actionable.”
Mayo Clinic has a financial interest in the technology, with executives saying they plan to use any revenue it gets to support its not-for-profit mission in patient care, education and research.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Metastatic cancer Patients live longer by using web-based tool
A web-based tool that enables metastatic cancer patients to report their symptoms in real time, giving alerts to clinicians, has been indicated to have major benefits, involving longer survival rates.
In a randomized clinical trial of 766 sufferers, those who used the tool to regularly self-report symptoms while getting chemotherapy lived a median of five months longer than those who didn’t use the tool. Results of the research were presented June 4 in the plenary session of the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.
The research was led by Ethan Basch, MD, professor of medicine at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of North Carolina, who was practicing at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York when the clinical trial was conducted.
“Online technologies have transformed communications in practically every aspect of our lives, and now we are seeing they are also allowing sufferers to take an active role in their care and get immediate access to their care provider,” claimed Basch. “The improvement in survival we saw might seem modest, but it is higher than the effect of several targeted cancer drugs for metastatic cancer patients.”
“When you consider about the cost of doing this, which is almost nil, versus the cost of drugs, it is pretty darn remarkable,” Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, told the 2017 AHIP Institute & Expo this week in Austin, Texas.
The web-based tool, known as the Symptom Tracking and Reporting (STAR) system, was internally developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for research purposes and isn’t commercially available.
“The aim of this research was really to see if you could use this web-based digital interface to allow sufferers to connect more readily to their medical team in the short term to see how that would impact quality of life and healthcare utilization,” claims ASCO expert Harold Burstein, MD.
“Sufferers and medical teams deployed these digital communications and when they did so saw they saw dramatic improvement in patient quality of life, a decrease in the numbers of times patients went to the emergency room, patients were capable to get more anti-cancer therapy that enabled treatment, as well as a better overall survival benefit,” adds Burstein. “People really lived longer with advanced cancer, and that is really quite an outstanding thing.”
Sufferers enrolled in the trial had advanced solid tumors—genitourinary, gynecologic, breast and lung— and were getting outpatient chemotherapy. The intervention group sufferers were randomly assigned to use tablet computers to report on 12 common symptoms experienced during chemotherapy, involving appetite loss, difficulty breathing, fatigue, hot flashes, nausea and pain, and to grade them on a five-point scale.
Sufferers could report their symptoms remotely from home or at the physician's office during oncology or chemotherapy visits, and nurses got email alerts when patients reported severe or worsening symptoms.
Compared with patients who got usual care, those who utilized the web tool to self-report symptoms had a longer median overall survival of 31.2 months versus 26 months.
“These were very dramatic outcomes, which is why they were engaged in the plenary session of our ASCO Annual Meeting last week,” analyzes Burstein. “The findings cut across all different kinds of cancers that affect all oncologists who work with cancer patients. It recommends that more intensive communication between the medical teams and the metastatic cancer patients can help nip issues in the bud.
“We require bringing easy-to-use communications between patients and medical teams into real, daily practice,” summarizes Burstein. “There are several companies making mobile apps, but this particular web interface was designed to immediately ping the nursing staff engaged with the patients’ care. So, you require systems that enable that kind of connectivity.”
A larger clinical trial is planned for community practices across the U.S. that will involve an updated, more user-friendly online tool that works on both personal computers and mobile devices.
In a randomized clinical trial of 766 sufferers, those who used the tool to regularly self-report symptoms while getting chemotherapy lived a median of five months longer than those who didn’t use the tool. Results of the research were presented June 4 in the plenary session of the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.
The research was led by Ethan Basch, MD, professor of medicine at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of North Carolina, who was practicing at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York when the clinical trial was conducted.
“Online technologies have transformed communications in practically every aspect of our lives, and now we are seeing they are also allowing sufferers to take an active role in their care and get immediate access to their care provider,” claimed Basch. “The improvement in survival we saw might seem modest, but it is higher than the effect of several targeted cancer drugs for metastatic cancer patients.”
“When you consider about the cost of doing this, which is almost nil, versus the cost of drugs, it is pretty darn remarkable,” Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, told the 2017 AHIP Institute & Expo this week in Austin, Texas.
The web-based tool, known as the Symptom Tracking and Reporting (STAR) system, was internally developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for research purposes and isn’t commercially available.
“The aim of this research was really to see if you could use this web-based digital interface to allow sufferers to connect more readily to their medical team in the short term to see how that would impact quality of life and healthcare utilization,” claims ASCO expert Harold Burstein, MD.
“Sufferers and medical teams deployed these digital communications and when they did so saw they saw dramatic improvement in patient quality of life, a decrease in the numbers of times patients went to the emergency room, patients were capable to get more anti-cancer therapy that enabled treatment, as well as a better overall survival benefit,” adds Burstein. “People really lived longer with advanced cancer, and that is really quite an outstanding thing.”
Sufferers enrolled in the trial had advanced solid tumors—genitourinary, gynecologic, breast and lung— and were getting outpatient chemotherapy. The intervention group sufferers were randomly assigned to use tablet computers to report on 12 common symptoms experienced during chemotherapy, involving appetite loss, difficulty breathing, fatigue, hot flashes, nausea and pain, and to grade them on a five-point scale.
Sufferers could report their symptoms remotely from home or at the physician's office during oncology or chemotherapy visits, and nurses got email alerts when patients reported severe or worsening symptoms.
Compared with patients who got usual care, those who utilized the web tool to self-report symptoms had a longer median overall survival of 31.2 months versus 26 months.
“These were very dramatic outcomes, which is why they were engaged in the plenary session of our ASCO Annual Meeting last week,” analyzes Burstein. “The findings cut across all different kinds of cancers that affect all oncologists who work with cancer patients. It recommends that more intensive communication between the medical teams and the metastatic cancer patients can help nip issues in the bud.
“We require bringing easy-to-use communications between patients and medical teams into real, daily practice,” summarizes Burstein. “There are several companies making mobile apps, but this particular web interface was designed to immediately ping the nursing staff engaged with the patients’ care. So, you require systems that enable that kind of connectivity.”
A larger clinical trial is planned for community practices across the U.S. that will involve an updated, more user-friendly online tool that works on both personal computers and mobile devices.
Connect2Health Task Force report mentions ‘critical need’ counties
The Connect2Health Task Force has issued an update to its research on the availability of broadband health services, recognizing counties in which there is a critical need for increased availability.
The group, supporting the health technology attempts of the Federal Communication Commission, issued new priority lists of “critical need” counties in broadband and health, which are among those most in requirement of broadband health solutions or are “digitally isolated.”
The findings were involved in the group’s update of its “Mapping Broadband Health in America” platform, which the federal agency issued on the day of Thursday. The latest set of information depicts the latest complete annual fixed broadband data from the FCC and updated health data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings.
“As telehealth, telemedicine and other cutting-edge mHealth initiatives gain momentum across the country, this web-based mapping platform enables more effective, data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health,” claims Michele Ellison, chair of the Connect2Health Task Force FCC.
The fixed broadband data in the mapping update was released in the year of December 2016, covering information submissions as of December 2015. The health information is drawn from the 2017 release of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings & Roadmap. This map data update provided the Task Force with a chance to look at broadband and health data between years.
The group’s estimation of places most needing broadband health support are dubbed “The Priority 2017” and “Rural Priority 2017.” It targets to mention places of the country that are seeing increases in chronic diseases and shortages of medical services.
“We identify that the upturn in closures of rural hospitals and medical facilities, mentioned in recent research at the University of North Carolina, is of high concern to many,” Ellison claims. “The mapping platform shines a critical spotlight on the requirement for broadband health solutions in rural and digitally isolated counties where physician shortages are more than double the national average. It also indicates the significance of initiatives to promote broadband infrastructure deployment.”
Among the findings in the 2017 report:
The Connect2Health Task Force also launched a new analytical product, the Positive Trend Counties inventory, which compares broadband and health data year by year, hence identifying priority counties that have made progress on broadband or health measures, no longer meeting the thresholds as “critical need” counties.
The report mentions the issues the nation faces in better using broadband services to care for needy populations, says Mignon Clyburn, commissioner of the FCC.
“I’m glad that the Commission is demonstrating its continued commitment to the Connect2Health Task Force and the Mapping Broadband Health in America platform with the release of today’s update,” she says. “For far too several rural and underserved consumers, the broadband health picture remains bleak.
“The work of the Connect2Health Task Force is far from done. Armed with the robust input from stakeholders across the country along with the data and information that is pouring into the Commission in response to the latest Connect2Health Public Notice, the Task Force staff are working to make suggestions to the Commission about how best to architect broadband health policy to meet the requirements of rural and underserved Americans.”
The group, supporting the health technology attempts of the Federal Communication Commission, issued new priority lists of “critical need” counties in broadband and health, which are among those most in requirement of broadband health solutions or are “digitally isolated.”
The findings were involved in the group’s update of its “Mapping Broadband Health in America” platform, which the federal agency issued on the day of Thursday. The latest set of information depicts the latest complete annual fixed broadband data from the FCC and updated health data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings.
“As telehealth, telemedicine and other cutting-edge mHealth initiatives gain momentum across the country, this web-based mapping platform enables more effective, data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health,” claims Michele Ellison, chair of the Connect2Health Task Force FCC.
The fixed broadband data in the mapping update was released in the year of December 2016, covering information submissions as of December 2015. The health information is drawn from the 2017 release of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings & Roadmap. This map data update provided the Task Force with a chance to look at broadband and health data between years.
The group’s estimation of places most needing broadband health support are dubbed “The Priority 2017” and “Rural Priority 2017.” It targets to mention places of the country that are seeing increases in chronic diseases and shortages of medical services.
“We identify that the upturn in closures of rural hospitals and medical facilities, mentioned in recent research at the University of North Carolina, is of high concern to many,” Ellison claims. “The mapping platform shines a critical spotlight on the requirement for broadband health solutions in rural and digitally isolated counties where physician shortages are more than double the national average. It also indicates the significance of initiatives to promote broadband infrastructure deployment.”
Among the findings in the 2017 report:
- The number of individuals living in “double burden” counties—those with high levels of chronic sickness and lacking broadband access—has increased to more than 36 million, in accordance with the 2015 data. Almost half of U.S. counties have high burdens of chronic disease as well as a requirement for greater broadband connectivity.
- More than 60% of rural Americans live in “double burden” counties, while less than 5% of urban America falls into the similar category.
- Few 214 counties—175 of which are primarily rural—have broadband access below 50% and diabetes and obesity rates above the national average.
- Preventable hospitalizations are 150% higher in the least connected counties compared with other counties.
The Connect2Health Task Force also launched a new analytical product, the Positive Trend Counties inventory, which compares broadband and health data year by year, hence identifying priority counties that have made progress on broadband or health measures, no longer meeting the thresholds as “critical need” counties.
The report mentions the issues the nation faces in better using broadband services to care for needy populations, says Mignon Clyburn, commissioner of the FCC.
“I’m glad that the Commission is demonstrating its continued commitment to the Connect2Health Task Force and the Mapping Broadband Health in America platform with the release of today’s update,” she says. “For far too several rural and underserved consumers, the broadband health picture remains bleak.
“The work of the Connect2Health Task Force is far from done. Armed with the robust input from stakeholders across the country along with the data and information that is pouring into the Commission in response to the latest Connect2Health Public Notice, the Task Force staff are working to make suggestions to the Commission about how best to architect broadband health policy to meet the requirements of rural and underserved Americans.”
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
New Treatment to Be Introduced by Researches That Could Give Weeks of Glucose Control For Type 2 Diabetes Patients
To control their blood sugar levels, type 2 diabetes patients constantly require relying on medication, but it is a tricky condition to handle, specifically if you require daily insulin shots.
Researchers have been working on a latest method for delivering diabetes drugs to make them last longer in the body. Now a recent research using both mice and monkeys has indicated potential for treatments that would just need a couple of injections a month.
Few of the latest-generation type 2 diabetes drugs consist of a molecule called GLP1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), which stimulates insulin production in the body just when it requires more glucose.
That sounds ideal, but regrettably, GLP1 has a actually short half-life - it breaks down in the body quickly, making it an impractical long-term treatment on its own.
By combining it with other molecules, it is possible to extend the half-life of GLP1. But that method yet merely gets us to about 3-7 days.
Right now, sufferers in the US already have few options that can be injected weekly, but scientists are searching for a way to slow down the release of the drug itself.
Now a team from Duke University has managed to combine GLP1 with a biopolymer molecule that begins out as a liquid in colder temperatures, but thickens into a gel-like substance in reaction to body heat.
This means the solution can be managed with a simple injection, but once it gets into the body, the drug is released very slowly, so it can control blood glucose levels for longer with merely one dose.
To test how their new solution would work for actual diabetes treatment, the researchers tested the drug in both mice and in rhesus monkeys - 2 species with well-established diabetes models.
They got exciting outcomes in both: in mice, the new GLP1 solution controlled glucose levels for ten days after merely one injection; in monkeys, whose metabolism is slower, the effects lasted up to seventeen days.
More than 2 weeks for one injection is better than any diabetes drug presently on the market.
The team considers that because human metabolism is even slower than in monkeys, theoretically the drug could last longer in individuals, perhaps needing just one injection a month.
"Preclinical information presents compelling proof that this construct would need no more than 2 injections a month for humans, and possibly as few as one per month, particularly given the dose-stacking potential of this system," the researchers write in the paper.
The team considers their new approach to 'trapping' GLP1 in the gel-like substance could be applied to other types of medication, too.
Of course, it is significant to note that so far the method has only worked in animal studies, and scientists will require doing more research to see how the principles would translate to human use.
GLP1-based medications are presently not the first-line treatment for people with type 2 diabetes, but this sounds like an exciting step towards making diabetes management simpler for many.
The study was released in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Researchers have been working on a latest method for delivering diabetes drugs to make them last longer in the body. Now a recent research using both mice and monkeys has indicated potential for treatments that would just need a couple of injections a month.
Few of the latest-generation type 2 diabetes drugs consist of a molecule called GLP1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), which stimulates insulin production in the body just when it requires more glucose.
That sounds ideal, but regrettably, GLP1 has a actually short half-life - it breaks down in the body quickly, making it an impractical long-term treatment on its own.
By combining it with other molecules, it is possible to extend the half-life of GLP1. But that method yet merely gets us to about 3-7 days.
Right now, sufferers in the US already have few options that can be injected weekly, but scientists are searching for a way to slow down the release of the drug itself.
Now a team from Duke University has managed to combine GLP1 with a biopolymer molecule that begins out as a liquid in colder temperatures, but thickens into a gel-like substance in reaction to body heat.
This means the solution can be managed with a simple injection, but once it gets into the body, the drug is released very slowly, so it can control blood glucose levels for longer with merely one dose.
To test how their new solution would work for actual diabetes treatment, the researchers tested the drug in both mice and in rhesus monkeys - 2 species with well-established diabetes models.
They got exciting outcomes in both: in mice, the new GLP1 solution controlled glucose levels for ten days after merely one injection; in monkeys, whose metabolism is slower, the effects lasted up to seventeen days.
More than 2 weeks for one injection is better than any diabetes drug presently on the market.
The team considers that because human metabolism is even slower than in monkeys, theoretically the drug could last longer in individuals, perhaps needing just one injection a month.
"Preclinical information presents compelling proof that this construct would need no more than 2 injections a month for humans, and possibly as few as one per month, particularly given the dose-stacking potential of this system," the researchers write in the paper.
The team considers their new approach to 'trapping' GLP1 in the gel-like substance could be applied to other types of medication, too.
Of course, it is significant to note that so far the method has only worked in animal studies, and scientists will require doing more research to see how the principles would translate to human use.
GLP1-based medications are presently not the first-line treatment for people with type 2 diabetes, but this sounds like an exciting step towards making diabetes management simpler for many.
The study was released in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
How Pixar brings its animated movies to life
You're probably thinking that you know everything there is to know about the Rooftop Concert Series You're saying to yourself, it started in 1986 and was on for 9 seasons and starred Andy Griffith.
Just because you can do something, should you? Samsung thinks so. Its second experimentally screened phone taps into its hardware R&D and production clout to offer something not many other companies.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM THIS CONCERT?
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width=""]
A concert is a live performance of music in front of an audience.[/caption]The Rooftop Concert Series began in 2010 when four Provo residents (Sarah Wiley, C. Jane Kendrick, Mindy Gledhill, and Justin Hackworth) met together to discuss ways they could get more people to come downtown.
Ccity has to offer one obvious starting point was the music that was being made played, and performed in Provo. How about concerts on the roof someone said and the Rooftop Concert Series was born.
Buy 2016 Concert Tickets at Ticketpocket
There are lots of places to park in downtown Provo and close to the venue. Check out this map here. We also have free valet bicycle parking available, courtesy of the Provo Bicycle Collective. Ride your bike to the concert and take advantage of the most convenient parking available.
LIVE ON STAGE OR INDOOR HALL?
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width=""]
The concert ticket is one of the most sought after tickets in the industry as there is no off-season for concert tours.[/caption]The exploration of space stands as one of humanity's greatest achievements. While history has hailed the men and women who reached the cosmos, and those who helped them get there, much of the infrastructure that sent them skyward lies forgotten and dilapidated.
Red Rocks Entertainment Concerts
And how does Apple's biggest phone compare to the Note Edge? Well, both remain unwieldy to grip, and the Note Edge is wider. However, the edged screen nuzzles into my hand better and those software tweaks mentioned above give it the advantage. However, just like the stylus, there's a while before you get the knack of all the little provisions Samsung's made to ease users into this screen size.
Roland Miller has spent nearly half his life chronicling these landmarks before they are lost forever long been obsessed with space as a child, he dreamed of being an astronaut.
FREE ENTRANCE
Its curves are subjective and divisive; my friends and colleagues have offered up reactions ranging from outright bemusement to adoration. The screen looks great, with the punchy contrast and sharpness that's been a Samsung flagship mainstay for years. We'll get back to that edge, but it's the headline part of a 5.6-inch Quad-HD+ display.
LIVE SOUND
Make this secondary menu transparent, allowing me to maintain all that screen space. The ability to shrink the likes of Chrome and Google Maps to a popup window and layer it on top of other apps is also useful I'd love to see something similar on the iPhone 6 Plus continues to clear away.
AUDIO
If you're looking to learn more about the stylus uses, I'd advise a quick read of Brad's Galaxy Note 4 review, because the setup is identical here. Yes, there are TouchWiz bits running on Android 4.4 KitKat.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width=""]
Events including the summer concert series at our Woodinville Winery[/caption]But let's focus on what's different here: that edge. There are two display modes you can flit between: a slender, unassuming bar that can display a customized message and a more substantial column that attempts to offer extra functionality, notifications or context-dependent.
Courtroom Concerts 2015 - 2016 A Free Weekly Lunchtime Concert Series
While I'm not a huge selfie taker, you'll have to ask our Senior Selfie Editor, but I do take a whole lot of photos with my smartphone.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="309"]
Good music in a great town.[/caption]When it's expanded, the UI is a basic row of icons, which you can navigate with a little swipe. This may look a little unusual, but swishing through the various mini-screens is immensely satisfying.
And how does Apple's biggest phone compare to the Note Edge? Well, both remain unwieldy to grip, and the Note Edge is wider. However, the edged screen nuzzles into my hand better and those software tweaks mentioned above give it the advantage.
However, just like the stylus, there's a while before you get the knack of all the little provisions Samsung's made to ease users into this screen size.
The screen is marginally smaller than the Note 4, despite the cranked-up pixel count. Like the Note 4, text pops a little more, and pictures you take with the 16MP camera are obviously better replicated on the Note Edge's screen.
Well, both remain unwieldy to grip, and the Note Edge is wider. However, the edged screen nuzzles into my hand better and those software tweaks mentioned above give it the advantage.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Duke University: Handheld device serves cervical cancer screenings
The researchers of Duke University have established a handheld device for cervical cancer screenings that produces high-quality images on a smartphone or laptop, part of an initiative to make screenings more accessible, convenient to conduct and less expensive than studies using costly traditional equipment.
The wand-like device, which is portable and easier to use, captures high-quality pictures of the cervix. In fact, the pocket colposcope rivals the image quality of the best colposcopes on the market but at a fraction of the weight, size and cost, contends Nimmi Ramanujam, the Robert W. Carr, Jr., Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke.
In accordance with Ramanujam, current standard practices for cervical cancer screenings require a speculum (a metal device designed to spread the vaginal walls apart), a colposcope (a magnified telescopic device and camera designed to enable medical professionals to see the cervix), as well as a highly trained expert to administer the test. As an outcome, she notes that cervical cancer is more prevalent in females living in low socioeconomic communities that do not have access to these resources.
“The mortality rate of cervical cancer should absolutely be 0% because we have all the tools to see and treat it—but, it is not,” claims Ramanujam. “That is in part because women don’t get screening or do not follow up on a positive screening to have colposcopy performed at a referral clinic. We require bringing colposcopy to women so that we can decrease this complicated string of actions."
The device, which was established with funding from the National Institutes of Health, has a colposcope design that resembles a pocket-sized tampon with lights and a camera at one end. It also involves an inserter through which the colposcope can be inserted to make the entire procedure speculum free. The channel through the inserter is also accessible to contrast agents used for the cervical cancer screenings procedure.
Researchers are working on automating the screening procedure by utilizing image processing and machine learning to teach computers how to spot signs of precancerous and cancerous cells. Finally, Ramanujam considers women could use the device to self-screen, eliminating the requirement for a trained physician, and hence potentially transforming screening and cure rates worldwide.
The genesis for the device was a trip that Ramanujam, who is director of the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke, made to Tanzania in which clinicians in that country reported complications in getting females screened for cervical cancer in the developing country due to the uncomfortable speculums.
“Cervical cancer screenings commonly needs use of a speculum to give a clear view of the cervix. The speculum is one potential barrier to screening because of fear of pain, discomfort and embarrassment,” write Ramanujam and her coworkers in a May 31 article in the journal PLOS One. “This research indicates the feasibility of an inserter and miniature-imaging device for comfortable cervical image capture of females with potential for synergistic HPV and Pap smear sample collection.”
In their research of 15 volunteers at Duke, with self-insertion and physician-assisted cervix image capture, adequate cervix visualization for 83% of sufferers was demonstrated, while 92.3% of women reported that they preferred the speculum-free cervical cancer screening afforded by the device.
The pocket colposcope has been tested with a speculum in clinical trials in the United States, Kenya, Peru and Tanzania, with about 500 sufferers enrolled to date. New researches are planned in Honduras and Zambia. The speculum-free version has been recently launched into a 50-patient study; it will assess how the speculum-free device compares with standard speculum-based gynecology for visualization of the cervix.
“We have applied for extra funding from the NIH to continue these efforts,” Ramanujam summarizes, while noting that the team is working on regulatory clearance for the device, which they hope to get by the end of 2017.
The wand-like device, which is portable and easier to use, captures high-quality pictures of the cervix. In fact, the pocket colposcope rivals the image quality of the best colposcopes on the market but at a fraction of the weight, size and cost, contends Nimmi Ramanujam, the Robert W. Carr, Jr., Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke.
In accordance with Ramanujam, current standard practices for cervical cancer screenings require a speculum (a metal device designed to spread the vaginal walls apart), a colposcope (a magnified telescopic device and camera designed to enable medical professionals to see the cervix), as well as a highly trained expert to administer the test. As an outcome, she notes that cervical cancer is more prevalent in females living in low socioeconomic communities that do not have access to these resources.
“The mortality rate of cervical cancer should absolutely be 0% because we have all the tools to see and treat it—but, it is not,” claims Ramanujam. “That is in part because women don’t get screening or do not follow up on a positive screening to have colposcopy performed at a referral clinic. We require bringing colposcopy to women so that we can decrease this complicated string of actions."
The device, which was established with funding from the National Institutes of Health, has a colposcope design that resembles a pocket-sized tampon with lights and a camera at one end. It also involves an inserter through which the colposcope can be inserted to make the entire procedure speculum free. The channel through the inserter is also accessible to contrast agents used for the cervical cancer screenings procedure.
Researchers are working on automating the screening procedure by utilizing image processing and machine learning to teach computers how to spot signs of precancerous and cancerous cells. Finally, Ramanujam considers women could use the device to self-screen, eliminating the requirement for a trained physician, and hence potentially transforming screening and cure rates worldwide.
The genesis for the device was a trip that Ramanujam, who is director of the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke, made to Tanzania in which clinicians in that country reported complications in getting females screened for cervical cancer in the developing country due to the uncomfortable speculums.
“Cervical cancer screenings commonly needs use of a speculum to give a clear view of the cervix. The speculum is one potential barrier to screening because of fear of pain, discomfort and embarrassment,” write Ramanujam and her coworkers in a May 31 article in the journal PLOS One. “This research indicates the feasibility of an inserter and miniature-imaging device for comfortable cervical image capture of females with potential for synergistic HPV and Pap smear sample collection.”
In their research of 15 volunteers at Duke, with self-insertion and physician-assisted cervix image capture, adequate cervix visualization for 83% of sufferers was demonstrated, while 92.3% of women reported that they preferred the speculum-free cervical cancer screening afforded by the device.
The pocket colposcope has been tested with a speculum in clinical trials in the United States, Kenya, Peru and Tanzania, with about 500 sufferers enrolled to date. New researches are planned in Honduras and Zambia. The speculum-free version has been recently launched into a 50-patient study; it will assess how the speculum-free device compares with standard speculum-based gynecology for visualization of the cervix.
“We have applied for extra funding from the NIH to continue these efforts,” Ramanujam summarizes, while noting that the team is working on regulatory clearance for the device, which they hope to get by the end of 2017.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Health Officials: Mosquitoes tested negative for deadly Zika virus
Health agencies say a mosquito species capable of spreading the deadly Zika virus has been discovered in metro Las Vegas but that tests on two of the mosquitoes for Zika were negative.
Health officials traced the mosquitoes on the day of Wednesday in North Las Vegas. The mosquitoes can spread deadly Zika virus by biting an infected person who still has the virus in their blood, and then surviving long enough to bite another person after the virus has had time to multiply in their system
Southern Nevada Health District officials declared on the late Friday that a state lab tested two mosquitoes and that the third has been sent to a federal lab for confirmation.
Clark County residents had 22 cases of Zika virus in the year of 2016. One was sexually transmitted and 21 were linked with travel.
Health officials traced the mosquitoes on the day of Wednesday in North Las Vegas. The mosquitoes can spread deadly Zika virus by biting an infected person who still has the virus in their blood, and then surviving long enough to bite another person after the virus has had time to multiply in their system
Southern Nevada Health District officials declared on the late Friday that a state lab tested two mosquitoes and that the third has been sent to a federal lab for confirmation.
Clark County residents had 22 cases of Zika virus in the year of 2016. One was sexually transmitted and 21 were linked with travel.
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Agencies more vulnerable than ever to cyber security attack
Cyber security attack vulnerability is at all-time high, and just one in five agencies can manage an attack “very well,” in accordance with new research from audit and advisory firm KPMG LLP and recruitment firm and IT outsourcing provider Harvey Nash.
Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the 4,498 global CIOs and technology leaders that the firms surveyed between the time period of December 2016 and April 2017 are adapting their technology strategies in the midst of unprecedented global political and economic uncertainty. The proportion of agencies surveyed that now have enterprise-wide digital strategies increased 52% in just 2 years, and those agencies with a chief digital officer have increased 39% over last year, in accordance to the study. Organizations are more vulnerable than ever to cyber security attack.
To assist deliver these complex digital strategies, organizations also report a huge demand for enterprise architects—the fastest increasing technology skill this year, up 26% compared with the year of 2016.
Nearly, one third of the IT leaders (32%) reported that their agencies had been the target of a major cyber security attack in the last 24 months, a 45% increase from 2013. Just one in five (21 percent) said they are “very well” prepared to respond to these attacks, down from 29% in the year of 2014.
The biggest rise in threats comes from insider attacks, increasing from 40% to 47% over last year.
“From an organizational and cultural perspective, the CIO is now confronted with a full transformation to digital, enterprise-wide,” said Bob Miano, president and CEO at Harvey Nash. This full-scale move to a digital atmosphere is increasing data vulnerability.
“Digital is without question the CIO’s priority. But specifically for legacy organizations, leading this change to a complete, unified digital strategy is top of mind,” Miano stated.
While the fastest-growing demand for a technology skill this year was enterprise architecture, big data and analytics sustained to be the most in-demand skill, at 42%, up 8% over last year.
Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the 4,498 global CIOs and technology leaders that the firms surveyed between the time period of December 2016 and April 2017 are adapting their technology strategies in the midst of unprecedented global political and economic uncertainty. The proportion of agencies surveyed that now have enterprise-wide digital strategies increased 52% in just 2 years, and those agencies with a chief digital officer have increased 39% over last year, in accordance to the study. Organizations are more vulnerable than ever to cyber security attack.
To assist deliver these complex digital strategies, organizations also report a huge demand for enterprise architects—the fastest increasing technology skill this year, up 26% compared with the year of 2016.
Nearly, one third of the IT leaders (32%) reported that their agencies had been the target of a major cyber security attack in the last 24 months, a 45% increase from 2013. Just one in five (21 percent) said they are “very well” prepared to respond to these attacks, down from 29% in the year of 2014.
The biggest rise in threats comes from insider attacks, increasing from 40% to 47% over last year.
“From an organizational and cultural perspective, the CIO is now confronted with a full transformation to digital, enterprise-wide,” said Bob Miano, president and CEO at Harvey Nash. This full-scale move to a digital atmosphere is increasing data vulnerability.
“Digital is without question the CIO’s priority. But specifically for legacy organizations, leading this change to a complete, unified digital strategy is top of mind,” Miano stated.
While the fastest-growing demand for a technology skill this year was enterprise architecture, big data and analytics sustained to be the most in-demand skill, at 42%, up 8% over last year.
Friday, June 2, 2017
Rush Health begins ambitious health info exchange project
Rush Health has gone live with a private health info exchange project to share information with three of its hospitals and 800 physician providers.
The health info exchange project platform from InterSystems will support the collection, use, sharing and analysis of financial, clinical and resource utilization data, as well as care coordination, the sufferer experience and provider engagement as the industry shifts away from fee-for-service and into value-based care.
Rush Health offers care in the area of Chicago, operating 4 hospitals with a total network of 1,100 physicians. The agency uses both Epic and Allscripts electronic health records (EHRs) systems.
The HIE is a key part of an interoperability strategy to support standard transition of care workflows across the network of delivery system, claims CIO Julie Bonello, and to explain the best inoperability tools and standards to support the different kinds of providers and their EHRs.
The HIE also targets admission and discharge notifications for care managers to follow up with sufferer, and over time will link to other exchanges and networks to give physicians a longitudinal view of patients’ medical histories.
“As more contracts shift to value-based care, it is significant for our providers and care team to have convenient access to correct clinical information along with actionable clinical notifications integrated within their EHR,” Bonello elaborates. “Our aim is to ensure interoperability tools support our new care delivery workflows that connect the whole care team.”
By using the HIE, clinicians will be capable to view their aggregated sufferer data within their own EHR, even when the information comes from a different EHR. This will spare physicians the requirement to alter their clinical workflows or sign on to an extra application. The HIE also will support real-time alerts and notifications.
To support providers shifting to value-based care, Rush Health will assist them negotiate payer contracts and manage performance like clinical metrics, utilization, patient satisfaction, care coordination patient experience and charges.
“As a private HIE, we need to use all the information to tell us how patients are doing,” Bonello explains. “We’ll use HIE as an intelligence hub building rules to monitor quality and resources. We can use analytics to recognize patients at risk and trigger events in the HIE to notify providers and care management teams for follow-up. We are using our HIE to support our performance across the network.”
For now, although, the HIE is in an early stage, and a clinically driven governance structure is being established to guide the project and learn from lessons experienced. Early pilots are examining use of the emerging FHIR interoperability standard and application programming interfaces.
There will be much trial and error as processes and tools aren’t yet mature, Bonello claims. “We are talking about data, quality and metric standards that remain relatively new so this is very much an innovative journey.”
The health info exchange project platform from InterSystems will support the collection, use, sharing and analysis of financial, clinical and resource utilization data, as well as care coordination, the sufferer experience and provider engagement as the industry shifts away from fee-for-service and into value-based care.
Rush Health offers care in the area of Chicago, operating 4 hospitals with a total network of 1,100 physicians. The agency uses both Epic and Allscripts electronic health records (EHRs) systems.
The HIE is a key part of an interoperability strategy to support standard transition of care workflows across the network of delivery system, claims CIO Julie Bonello, and to explain the best inoperability tools and standards to support the different kinds of providers and their EHRs.
The HIE also targets admission and discharge notifications for care managers to follow up with sufferer, and over time will link to other exchanges and networks to give physicians a longitudinal view of patients’ medical histories.
“As more contracts shift to value-based care, it is significant for our providers and care team to have convenient access to correct clinical information along with actionable clinical notifications integrated within their EHR,” Bonello elaborates. “Our aim is to ensure interoperability tools support our new care delivery workflows that connect the whole care team.”
By using the HIE, clinicians will be capable to view their aggregated sufferer data within their own EHR, even when the information comes from a different EHR. This will spare physicians the requirement to alter their clinical workflows or sign on to an extra application. The HIE also will support real-time alerts and notifications.
To support providers shifting to value-based care, Rush Health will assist them negotiate payer contracts and manage performance like clinical metrics, utilization, patient satisfaction, care coordination patient experience and charges.
“As a private HIE, we need to use all the information to tell us how patients are doing,” Bonello explains. “We’ll use HIE as an intelligence hub building rules to monitor quality and resources. We can use analytics to recognize patients at risk and trigger events in the HIE to notify providers and care management teams for follow-up. We are using our HIE to support our performance across the network.”
For now, although, the HIE is in an early stage, and a clinically driven governance structure is being established to guide the project and learn from lessons experienced. Early pilots are examining use of the emerging FHIR interoperability standard and application programming interfaces.
There will be much trial and error as processes and tools aren’t yet mature, Bonello claims. “We are talking about data, quality and metric standards that remain relatively new so this is very much an innovative journey.”
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Worker at Trios Health snoops on information of 600 sufferers
A worker at Trios Health, which is anchored by Trios Southridge Hospital in Washington State, was utilizing its electronic health record (EHR) system not just to perform job duties but to also look up data on sufferers outside of the employee's job function.
The tragedy is the latest in a spate of breaches at healthcare agencies by insiders.
The Trios Health breach was discovered by its health information management department on the day of March 14. Compromised data involved dates of service, diagnoses, demographic information, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, phone numbers and email addresses.
After an inquiry, the agency put in new EHR use restrictions to staff within the worker’s department and terminated the employee. The inquiry continues and as does extra privacy training and new standard auditing procedures to secure PHI. Notification letters to about 600 affected patients started being mailed on the day of May 29.
Trios Health is providing a year of identity theft, credit and fraud monitoring protection services for affected sufferers through Identity Force. Spokespersons for the agency didn’t respond to a request for extra information.
Other breaches at healthcare agencies of protected health information caused by insiders involve the following:
* At Med Center Health in Kentucky, a worker took data on 2 occasions to develop an outside business.
* Beacon Health System in Indiana discovered a worker had been accessing patient emergency department records for 3 years without permission or a reason to view them.
* A volunteer at NYC Health + Hospitals inadvertently caused a breach because she managed protected health information before being completely vetted and trained by the human resources department.
* 2 employees in the patient transport department at the institute of Vanderbilt University Medical Center were inappropriately accessing patient records by gaining more information than required to do their jobs.
The tragedy is the latest in a spate of breaches at healthcare agencies by insiders.
The Trios Health breach was discovered by its health information management department on the day of March 14. Compromised data involved dates of service, diagnoses, demographic information, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, phone numbers and email addresses.
After an inquiry, the agency put in new EHR use restrictions to staff within the worker’s department and terminated the employee. The inquiry continues and as does extra privacy training and new standard auditing procedures to secure PHI. Notification letters to about 600 affected patients started being mailed on the day of May 29.
Trios Health is providing a year of identity theft, credit and fraud monitoring protection services for affected sufferers through Identity Force. Spokespersons for the agency didn’t respond to a request for extra information.
Other breaches at healthcare agencies of protected health information caused by insiders involve the following:
* At Med Center Health in Kentucky, a worker took data on 2 occasions to develop an outside business.
* Beacon Health System in Indiana discovered a worker had been accessing patient emergency department records for 3 years without permission or a reason to view them.
* A volunteer at NYC Health + Hospitals inadvertently caused a breach because she managed protected health information before being completely vetted and trained by the human resources department.
* 2 employees in the patient transport department at the institute of Vanderbilt University Medical Center were inappropriately accessing patient records by gaining more information than required to do their jobs.
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