December 15th, 2011 by DeborahSchwarzRPA in News
Tags: Cardiac Transplantation, Cardiology, Columbia University, Dr. Yoshifumi Naka, Failing heart, Health News, New York-Presbyterian, SynCardia, Total Artificial Heart, Transplant
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Yoshifumi Naka, MD, PhD
Total Artificial Heart Improves Patient Survival to Transplant While Reducing Some Risks of Transplant Surgery
Surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center performed the first Total Artificial Heart implant in the New York City area to replace a patient’s dying heart.
“For patients who will die without a heart transplant, the Total Artificial Heart helps them survive until they can get one. By replacing the heart, we are eliminating the symptoms and the source of heart failure,” said lead surgeon Dr. Yoshifumi Naka, director of Cardiac Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support Programs at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia and associate professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Similar to a heart transplant, the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Columbia University Department of Surgery Blog*
December 15th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in News, Opinion
Tags: Amalga, EHR, FDA, GE Healthcare, Health 2.0, Health Reform, HIT, Microsoft, Microsoft Health Solutions Group, NY Times, Patient Safety, Qualibria
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Microsoft and GE Healthcare announced a joint venture last week (as-yet unnamed), trumpeted as bringing together the best of both companies’ offerings in the health care provider market. (More from the NY Times.) Late in the day, I spoke with Brandon Savage, Chief Medical Officer at GE Healthcare, and Nate McLemore, General Manager of Microsoft Health Solutions Group. They had a great deal to say about the companies’ shared vision of the use of platform technology to enable care teams to deliver the right decision at the right time, noting that their core products complement each other rather than overlap.
The centerpiece of the collaboration will be an amalgamation (so to speak) of the two companies’ strengths around Amalga (the Microsoft product) and Qualibria (the GE product). Brandon and Nate described the challenges facing these products thus: Qualibria needs to be able to pull in data from multiple sources better (Microsoft can help), and Amalga needs to be able to share best practices across sites better (GE can help).
Put another way (to quote John Moore at Chilmark Research), Amalga is “more a toolset than a product.” McLemore acknowledged that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
December 13th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in News
Tags: Birth Control, Blood Clot, Clot, Committee, DVT, estrogen, Family Planning, FDA, Informed, Oral Contraceptives, Ortho Evra, Packaging, PE, Product labeling, Progestin, Risk, the Patch, The Pill
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After cautiously clearing Yaz for continued use Thursday, an FDA Advisory Panel Friday addressed post-marketing data showing similarly increased blood clot risks among users of the contraceptive patch. The committee, after having been clearly quite extensively briefed, heard testimony from Ortho Evra’s manufacturer and experts in epidemiology, gynecology and hematology. They also heard moving testimony about a young woman who died from a massive pulmonary embolism while using the Nuvaring, whose parents argued that not only the Patch, but most of the newer methods carry an increased clot risk that no woman should be allowed to take without being adequately informed.
The committee ruled that despite limitations of the data, the patch most likely carried a 1.5 times relative risk of blood clots compared to 2nd generation levonogestrel pills, but not necessarily higher than that of newer pills containing 3rd and 4th generation progestins and drosperinone. With a few dissenters, the committee voted to allow the Patch to stay on the market, but asked for Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
December 12th, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in News
Tags: Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway, Israel, Journalist, Pregnancy, Pregnant, Radiation, Strip Search, The New York Times, X-ray
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Like most pregnant women Lynsey Addario was cautious and conscientious. After all, this was her first pregnancy. She called the border officials in advance to make certain that she would not have to walk through an X-ray machine when she entered a country that has been besieged by war for more than 60 years. Unfortunately, Addario was wrong. Dead wrong. She was scanned, not once. Not twice. But THREE times and then made to strip down to her underwear. The soldiers laughed each time she complained. What was so funny? Her 28-week pregnant belly? Or perhaps her vulnerability.
As an American photojournalist with a Pulitzer Prize under her belt, Addario is not immune to danger. She had first-hand experience while on an assignment for The New York Times in March of 2011. At that time, she along with four other journalists went missing for four days in Libya. They were ultimately released but not before Addario was allegedly groped and humiliated by Libyan soldiers. In May 2009 she broke her collar bone in a motor vehicle accident in Pakistan where another passenger was injured and the driver was killed. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
December 11th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Health Policy, News
Tags: CDC, Flu Vaccine, H1N1, Healthcare Workers, How To Increase Vaccination Rates, Influenza, Patient Safety, Vaccination, Vaccination Rates
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Far more health care workers got flu vaccines this year than at the same point last year, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although rates are still far less than ideal.
While flu vaccination rates among health care professionals have risen slowly over the past decade, less than half this group were vaccinated until the 2009-10 season, when an estimated 62% of health care workers received seasonal flu vaccines and an additional 2% of workers got only the H1N1 influenza vaccination, the report said. In the 2010-11 season, 63.5% of health care professionals reported flu vaccination.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that all health care professionals get the flu vaccine every year, and the national Healthy People 2020 objective for health care professionals influenza vaccination is 90%. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*
