Transform 2017, held a few weeks ago, was the tenth annual healthcare innovation conference hosted by the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI). Each year it brings together stakeholders from around the world to “challenge assumptions, collaborate, and share results to create the future of health care.” This year the conference focused on Closing the […]
Tag: Public Health
UCLA Trials Ambulance Equipped with CT Scanner for Rapid Stroke Treatment
According to the AHA (American Heart Association), when it comes to stroke, it’s all about acting FAST (face, arms, speech, time). And while comprehensive stroke centers have gotten pretty good at triaging and imaging and treating patients, the time it takes for the ambulance to transport the patient to the hospital eats up precious minutes. […]
Rapid Phone-Based Test for Multiple Infectious Pathogens
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Washington at Tacoma have partnered to develop a compact, portable, and easy to use system for simultaneously detecting a variety of bacteria and viruses that cause disease. The system provides results in about a half an hour, which are nearly as accurate as laboratory […]
Portable 3D Scanner to Assess Elephantiasis Patients
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a portable 3D scanner that can help health workers to rapidly assess patients with elephantiasis, a condition that causes swollen limbs. The scanner allows medical professionals to measure the volume and dimensions of swollen limbs in the comfort of a patient’s home. Approximately […]
Surfaceskins Excrete Alcohol on Every Push to Prevent Spread of In-Hospital Infections
Hospital acquired infections continue to be a major source of patient morbidities. Hand washing guidelines, ubiquitously available alcohol sanitizers, and keeping patients away from each other has helped reduce the spread of nosocomial infections. Nevertheless, much more needs to be done to prevent hospitals themselves from being vectors that spread infections that walk through their […]
Tiny Nanopatch Shown Highly Effective Against Polio Virus
A new vaccine delivering “Nanopatch” has just been tested that may finally help put an end to polio. Developed by a scientist at Queensland University in Australia and commercialized by Vaxxas, a firm based in Sydney, the patch has microscopic needles projecting from its bottom that pass the vaccine directly to the antigen-presenting cells below […]
Hopkins Researchers Deliver Blood Samples Using Drone in 161 Mile Journey
The last few weeks have been full of natural disasters striking Mexico, islands in the Caribbean, and the United States mainland. Roads are damaged and entire communities have been cut off from help for days at a time, while the potential for infectious diseases to thrive has skyrocketed. Moreover, patients often end up without their […]
Lyra Health and Welking Health Announce New Partnership to Improve Employee Access to Behavioral Health Services [Interview]
Earlier this year we shared news of a partnership between Welkin Health, a technology platform on which organizations can build their own digital therapeutic solutions, and Common Sensing, developers of the Gocap, a dose-capturing insulin pen cap, to evolve the paradigm of at-home diabetes management. Recently, Welkin Health announced a new partnership with Lyra Health to […]
Paper Test for Zika Powered by Gold Nanoparticles
Zika is often a silent disease that might not display any symptoms in infected persons, making screening particularly important. In the developing world, mobile testing systems that can be easily transported and used are not available, so sending a sample to a lab is still required to detect Zika infected individuals. Researchers at Washington University […]
Video Recognition System Tracks Washing Patterns of Hospital Workers
A team from Stanford University built and tested a computer vision system that uses cameras to track clinicians that wash their hands, helps to identify offenders that don’t do it often enough, and hopefully lowers the rate of disease transmission through a hospital. If the approach proves itself, it may convince hospitals to introduce this […]
Incentive-Based Systems to Improve Patient Compliance: Interview with Matt Loper, CEO of Wellth
Wellth, a digital health company based in New York, has developed a system that provides patients with daily financial incentives to improve their compliance with drug regimens. Low patient compliance results in significant issues in terms of patient health and increased financial costs. The company is particularly interested in targeting type 2 diabetes, congestive heart […]
Data Mined Insurance Records Point to Interesting Disease Relationships
Data about who has what disease holds a lot of clues about the diseases themselves and their causes. Researchers at the University of Chicago undertook a data mining effort to figure out what genetic and environmental patterns that a few dozen common diseases share with each other. The team gathered data from insurance claims related […]
New Mosquito Net Thwarts Mosquitoes Resistant to Existing Insecticides
BASF, the giant German chemical company, is reporting that the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a recommendation for the firm’s new Interceptor G2 insecticide-treated mosquito net. According to BASF, this is important because this is the “first WHO recommendation for a product based on a new insecticide class in more than 30 years.” The chemistry […]
Drones Demonstrate Ability to Deliver AEDs Much Faster Than Ambulances
Most serious medical emergencies require trained paramedics to come to the assistance of a stricken person, but sudden cardiac arrest can often be treated by a bystander using an automated external defibrillator (AED). While AEDs are becoming commonplace in airports, sporting venues, and other places that are visited by large numbers of people, most times when […]
Interview: Momentum Software Links Trained Responders with Nearby Medical Emergencies
The progress of emergency medicine and the technology that’s inside of modern ambulances helped to save millions of people around the world. Yet, in many cases the response time to acute life threatening situations is still too long, with too many people dying that could have been rescued. Modern technologies, such as automatic stoplight signaling, are […]
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate and Eradicate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total […]
Novel Flexible Glove-Based Biosensor for Detecting Organophosphates
Organophosphates are toxic chemicals used as pesticides in agricultural practice and as nerve agents in biological warfare. Exposure to organophosphates can cause severe illness or death if appropriate safety measures are not taken. Rapid and accurate point-of-use detection of organophosphate pesticides or nerve agents would improve security in both food safety and defense scenarios. A […]
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Jet Powered Pill Shoots Vaccine Into Cheek to Avoid Injections
At University of California Berkeley researchers have developed an innovative new way of delivering vaccines that may one day be an option over scary, and slightly painful, needle injections. The MucoJet device is a pill that, when pushed against the cheek, releases its cargo in the form of a microjet. The pressure generated is enough […]
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CleanSlate UV Sanitizer for Mobile Devices in Healthcare: An Interview
The average cell phone is dirtier than you might think. It has been estimated that a typical mobile phone could be up to six times dirtier than a public toilet and as many as one in four handsets could carry pathogenic bacteria. While we wash our hands, our phones rarely, if ever, get cleaned, and […]
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Cheap Ultrasensitive HIV Sensor to Help Screen Virus in Poorer Places
At the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Madrid, researchers have developed a tiny, cheap, portable sensor potentially capable of detecting HIV in people within a week of infection. These days nucleic acid amplification is the clinical standard, but it’s too expensive for many places around the world. Besides preventing early detection, not being able to screen […]
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