December 1st, 2010 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Dr. Felasfa Wodajo, Healthcare Apps, iMedicalApps, MedHealth World, Medical Apps, mHealth, MobiHealthNews, Mobile Health Apps, Mobile Health Technology, Mobile Medical Apps, Research2Guidance, Smartphone
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In the future your medical apps might come from your hospital, not your app store. So says a recently published report by Research2Guidance, a mobile technology research company based in Germany. In their report, titled “Health Market Report 2010-2015″ the market researchers came to the conclusion that the dominant mode of application distribution in the future will be from doctors, hospitals and other care providers.
The report also painted a bullish picture of healthcare app adoption, estimating that the number of users of mHealth apps on smartphone phones will reach 500m by 2015. However, the revenue from this sector will still be driven mostly by device sales and through provision of services, rather than by paid downloads.
The report preview shows it to be organized into three “dimensions”: a) The smartphone market, b) The current state of the mHealth market & c) mHealth outlook to 2015. One would imagine that the last portion will be the most avidly read read as the numerous stockholders in mHealth — telecoms, device makers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and entrepreneurs jockey to position themselves in this rapidly-evolving land grab. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
December 1st, 2010 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Assisted Reproductive Technology, Chromosomal Abnormalities, Dr. Peggy Polaneczky, Egg Freezing, Embryo Cryopreservation, Fertility and Sterility, Fertility Clinics, OB/GYN, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Oocyte Cryopreservation, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Reproductive Health, TBTAM, The Blog That Ate Manhattan, Women's Health
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Oocyte preservation, or egg freezing as it’s popularly called, is now being offered by over half of U.S. fertility clinics, and half of those not offering it now plan to do so in the future. This according to a national survey conducted in mid 2009 and reported this week in Fertility and Sterility.
Over two-thirds of the 143 centers offering oocyte cryopreservation will do it electively, as opposed to those that offer it only to women undergoing cancer treatments that threaten their natural fertility.
Go West, But Be Prepared To Pay
Centers located in the Western part of the U.S. are more likely to offer elective egg freezing than those in the East. Not surprisingly, centers that only accept out of pocket (as opposed to insurance) payments were more likely to offer the procedure, reflecting the history of infertility advancement, which, unlike almost any other area of medicine, has largely been financed by private individual dollars. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
November 30th, 2010 by PeterWehrwein in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Research
Tags: Benefits Vs. Harms, Bone Growth, Bone Health, Calcium, Dietary Supplements, Dr. Michael Holick, Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Health Publications, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Health Claims, Institute of Medicine, IOM, Kidney Stones, Osteoporosis, Peter Wehrwein, Postmenopausal Women, Vitamin D Recommendations, Women's Health
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Vitamin D has been talked about as the vitamin — the one that might help fend off everything from cancer to heart disease to autoimmune disorders, if only we were to get enough of it.
“Whoa!” is the message from a committee of experts assembled by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to update recommendations for vitamin D (and for calcium).
The IOM committee’s report, released this morning, says evidence for many of the health claims for vitamin D is “inconsistent and/or conflicting or did not demonstrate causality.” The exception is the vitamin’s well-documented (and noncontroversial) benefits on bone growth and maintenance.
The IOM panel’s report also says most North Americans (Canadians as well as Americans) have more than enough vitamin D in their blood to achieve the desired effect on bone. The committee said a blood level of 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) is sufficient for most people.
The panel set 600 International Units (IU) as the recommended daily intake for children and for adults ages 19 to 70. People ages 71 and older are supposed to get an additional 200 IU, or 800 IU a day.
That’s a fairly sizable increase over the previous recommendations of 200 IU per day through age 50, 400 IU for people ages 51 to 70, and 600 IU for people ages 71 and older. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
November 30th, 2010 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Accuracy of Medical Decision Making, Angioplasty, Annals Of Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Communication Disconnect, Communication Gap, Doctor-Patient Communication, Doctor-to-Patient Communication, Dr. Elaine Schattner, General Medicine, Healthcare Decision Making, Informed Consent, Medical Lessons, Medical Procedures, Patient Education, PCI, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, Reason For Treatment, Risks vs. Benefits, Shared Decision-Making, Surgical Procedures, Therapeutic Misconception, Treatment Decision-Making, Why A Procedure Should Be Done
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Over the long weekend I caught up on some reading. One article* stands out. It’s on informed consent, and the stunning disconnect between physicians’ and patients’ understanding of a procedure’s value.
The study, published in the Sept 7th Annals of Internal Medicine, used survey methods to evaluate 153 cardiology patients’ understanding of the potential benefit of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI or angioplasty). The investigators, at Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, compared patients’ responses to those of cardiologists who obtained consent and who performed the procedure. As outlined in the article’s introduction, PCI reduces heart attacks in patients with acute coronary syndrome — a more unstable situation than is chronic stable angina, in which case PCI relieves pain and improves quality of life but has no benefit in terms of recurrent myocardial infarction (MI) or survival.
The main result was that, after discussing the procedure with a cardiologist and signing the form, 88 percent of the patients, who almost all had chronic stable angina, believed that PCI would reduce their personal risk for having a heart attack. Only 17 percent of the cardiologists, who completed surveys about these particular patients and the potential benefit of PCI for patients facing similar scenarios, indicated that PCI would reduce the likelihood of MI.
This striking difference in patients’ and doctors’ perceptions is all the more significant because 96 percent of the patients “felt that they knew why they might undergo PCI, and more than half stated that they were actively involved in the decision-making.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*
November 30th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Bacterium, E. Coli, Gastroenterology, Gastrointestional Tract, Japan, Medgadget, RNA, Sudoku, University of Tokyo
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E. coli is a Gram negative rod-shaped bacterium that is a regular inhabitant of the human gastrointestinal tract and certain strains can cause a lot of trouble. A team from the University of Tokyo in Japan, however, have manipulated the bacterium to perform a more noble task: Solving Sudoku.
The bacterium managed to solve 4×4 grid Sudoku puzzles, and in theory the more common 9×9 grid puzzles should be solvable as well. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
