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MIT's needleless injections help you get drugs faster, doesn't even hurt (video)
Afraid of needles? You may not have to be if a team of MIT scientists get their way. Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering are developing a jet-injection device (similar to this one) that allows professionals to pump you full of meds without poking you with a needle. The key to puncture free pharmaceuticals is pressure -- the device uses a Lorenz Force actuator to push medicine out of an opening about the diameter of a mosquito's proboscis. The nozzle pulls liquids out just as fast and efficiently as it administers them, researchers say, and can even deliver powder-based drugs as if they were a liquid, thanks to a bit of supersonic trickery. This tech could be a boon to healthcare workers who get pricked on the job or patients who get daily insulin shots. Promises of painless inoculations piquing your interest? Hit the video after the break to see how its done.
FCC wants to set aside wireless spectrum for medical body area devices, our hearts are literally aflutter
The FCC has been making a big push towards freeing up the airwaves for medical uses, and it just took one of its biggest steps on that front by proposing to clear space for wireless body area networks. Agency officials want to let devices operate in the 2.36GHz to 2.4GHz space so that patients can stay at home or at least move freely, instead of being fenced in at the hospital or tethered to a bed by wires. Devices would still need the FDA's green light, but they could both let patients go home sooner as well as open the door wider for preventative care. Voting on the proposal takes place May 24, which leaves our tech-minded hearts beating faster -- and if the proposal takes effect, we'll know just how much faster.
Daily Update for April 17, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
New medical iPad platform reduces patient check-in time
NIIT Healthcare Technologies of Orlando, Florida introduced a mobile platform that'll speed up check-in times, improve communication and help process payments for hospitals, physician offices, clinics and laboratories. Called MASH for manage, analyze, sustain and harness, the product lets patients and doctors use mobile devices that tie into the facility's backend infrastructure. Patients can check-in autonomously using a tablet and describe their injury or illness, enter health insurance details or even navigate the halls of the facility. This information is then sent to the appropriate medical department which is alerted to the patient's arrival and to the business office for payment processing. This system is already installed in Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster California. "MASH's ability to reduce the waiting time and paperwork in our ER will provide our hospital with life-saving and cost-saving technologies," said Humberto Quintanar, CIO of Antelope Valley Hospital. [Via mobihealthnews]
Patients using iPad to customize MRI scanning experience
As fans of the TV hospital drama House can tell you, many hospital patients aren't exactly fond of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners. They're loud, confining, and generally quite uncomfortable. Now PDC Facilities, a company specializing in products for the medical diagnostics imaging market, has come up with a new product that uses an iPad to control and customize the patient experience. The product, known as the Caring MR Suite, lets patients "select personalized lighting, music, images and video to enjoy during their scan with a tap of the suite's iPad." If you're about to undergo a scan and would prefer to use your own music, images, and video, you can dock an iPhone or iPod for the ultimate in personalizing your way to a more comfortable experience. Special LED lighting fixtures and high-resolution displays are embedded in the walls and ceilings of the suite and controlled by the iPad. For a better idea of how the Caring MR Suite works to make scans a less frightening experience for patients, check out the video below.
Doctors list why they love Apple products, and miss Steve
It's no secret that the iPad is a hit in the healthcare industry, but doctors love more than just the sleek tablet. A study earlier this year showed that a full 75 percent of US physicians owned some sort of Apple device. In a post Wednesday on MedPage Today, blogger Iltifat Husain tabulated the reasons that doctors love their Apple products, and why they mourn the passing of Steve Jobs. Husain listed three main reasons: Simplicity, solid build quality and uniformity. In terms of simplicity, Husain mentions that so many medical devices and systems are functional, but poorly designed and often difficult to use. Having Apple devices in their lives gives them something to appreciate, not only because doctors are working around complex devices the rest of the time, but because their profession is so complex as well. When it comes to solid build quality, Husain said Apple devices extend the solidity of well-built medical equipment into the personal devices carried by physicians. Husain's word about Apple products sound like a love letter: "The feeling of a Macbook Pro confers this; just compare the aluminum unibody hardware build to the majority of plastic casing laptops -- it's a completely different experience. This type of comparison extends into the smartphone and tablet arena as well. The iPad and iPhone 4 have a clearly superior build quality compared to their competitors." The third reason, uniformity, deals with the user experience -- if you know how to use an iPhone, you immediately know how to work with an iPad. Husain notes that physicians don't have a lot of free time to sit around and figure out how to use new devices and "We don't want to root a mobile phone (Android), just so we can take off the silly skins that a manufacturer throws on so that we can get a better user experience." Doctors want something that just works, and that's something that late Apple CEO Steve Jobs intuitively understood.
Freescale Home Health Hub wants to usher in the era of connected medical devices
Freescale has its little silicon hands in all sorts of things: e-readers, smartphones, tablets, even refrigerators. Now the manufacturer is looking to make a dent in the healthcare industry with a connected platform called Home Health Hub (HHH). The i.MX28-based HHH isn't an actual product, but a reference platform for others to build on. The ARM9 processor is connected to a host of networking interfaces, including WiFi, Bluetooth (as well as its low-power implementation), Zigbee, sub-1GHz and Ethernet. The Hub is supposed to be just that, a central point for connecting various medical devices like blood pressure monitors or glucometers that then feeds data to a tablet. Developers and other interested parties can get their hands on the reference platform from Digi International as the iDigi Telehealth Application Kit for $499. Check out the full PR after the break.
Daily iPhone App: The Eatery
Crowdsourcing, the act of getting input from a large number of people quickly using social networking tools, is being used frequently for everything from recommendations on what restaurant are good to choosing cover art for a book. Now a new iPhone app, The Eatery (free) wants you to use the power of crowdsourcing to help you forge healthier eating habits. The idea of The Eatery is simple. Snap a picture of what you're eating, and then slide the picture to the appropriate point on a scale from fat to fit. That gives the app / service an idea of how you personally envision the relative healthiness of what you're eating. You can also designate where you're eating the meal -- at a restaurant or at home. Next, the photo is sent out anonymously to a feed where others using the app can rate the healthiness of your food. Within a day, you receive feedback on just how correct -- or delusional -- you are about how well you eat. The fun part of the app comes in rating other people's meals. This morning, for instance, I was glancing through the feed looking at meals and found one that was horrendous -- large servings of fried food that could stop your heart a mile away. With a touch, I slid the image to the fat end of the scale, and hopefully the person who posted this will receive a lot of feedback of this type, gently reminding him/her that they need to make better choices when it comes to food. %Gallery-139175% The company behind The Eatery is Massive Health, a start-up that hopes to fight chronic diseases through analysis of the data gathered through apps like this. Earlier in the year, the company raised US$2.25 million in funding from an impressive group of investors who believe that Massive Health has the right idea -- using smartphones as sensors to gather health information that can be stored in the cloud. As an example of what Massive Health can do with the data, they used some early results from The Eatery to compile maps of San Francisco and New York showing areas that trend more healthy or unhealthy. What good are the maps? Perhaps they'll show public health officials where in major metropolitan areas they need to focus their attention on encouraging good healthy eating habits. In the meantime, The Eatery is a fun way to get personal feedback on your own eating habits, anonymously "scold" others for their bad habits, and contribute to a data-gathering project.
Walgreens employees use iPads to aid customers
The next time you visit your local Walgreens store to get a prescription, find pain relief, choose laxatives or buy "Walker Balls," you may get help from an iPad-toting Walgreens employee called a "health guide." Walgreens, based in Deerfield, IL, is testing a new service in 16 stores in the Chicago area where a full-time employee carrying an iPad wanders the store to help out customers who are seeking assistance. To quote Colin Watts, the chief innovation officer for Walgreen Company, "The concept is meant to create a pharmacy and health care 'help desk' where customers get solutions or referrals for their personal health questions." According to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, the company has an ulterior motive. The health guide keeps customers from taking up valuable time with pharmacists for routine issues, allowing them to provide more one-on-one care with patients. The health guide app on the iPads was prepared by M-Healthcoach, another Chicago-based company. M-Healthcoach CEO Aamer Ghaffar said that "We are trying to not only improve people's quality of care, but also to reduce the patient load on doctors, pharmacies, and emergency rooms," with iPad-based mobile health apps. The health guides use the iPads to access information from government databases to physician ratings, and can also get full access to "blue button" medical records available to U.S. military personnel and government employees and retirees.
Dell Latitude ST tablet gets official with vague press release, dead links (video)
Remember that Latitude ST that Dell gave us a sneak peek at earlier in the week? Well it's slowly inching its way towards an official release, appearing on Dell's Corporate Blog early this morning. The Windows 7-based enterprise tablet is powered by an Intel Atom processor and includes a 10-inch multi-touch display with stylus, WiFi, mobile broadband options, front and rear webcams and a mic. There are also durability features like Gorilla Glass and a rubber bumper, enabling it to survive violent impacts with plush office carpeting. Port details are rather vague in the PR, though USB, HDMI and an SD card reader get their 15 seconds of fame in the promo video. There are also security features, like remote hard drive wipe, Microsoft Bitlocker support (this is a Windows 7 tablet, after all) and a Kensington Lock slot. Pricing details are absent and the product page isn't live quite yet (though that didn't stop Dell from linking to it from the blog post), but it looks like we could see these ship as soon as November 1st. Ready to get your tap and sketch on? Jump past the break for an enterprise montage, complete with doctors, educators and suit-sporting business pros. Update: Looks like the specs have leaked out overseas, so we're guessing it'll get official soon enough. Update 2: And here come the unboxing videos! Update 3: And Dell's business page is up! Thanks, One Love!
Intel's Skoool software brings study materials to healthcare workers in developing countries
When we consider Intel's contributions to developing nations, it's hard not to hone in on the 5 million-plus Classmate PCs it's shipped over the past four years. This time, at least, Intel is leaving the hardware part of the equation to the Lenovos and HPs of the world and focusing on the software instead. The company just announced the Skoool Healthcare Education platform, a collection of online and offline educational materials designed to help healthcare workers in developing countries better treat women and children, tackling malnutrition, vaccination, communicable diseases and childbirth safety. To be clear, Intel isn't getting into the medical content business -- it didn't write these resources but instead culled them from various third-party sources. The idea is that the company will provide the platform to governments and healthcare workers for free, forgoing what might otherwise be an opportunity to collect licensing fees. (It'll be up to local governments to work with companies like Dell to secure low-cost PCs to run the software.) For now, Intel's launching the program in Sri Lanka, where it already has a working history with the President and Minister of Health, but a rep tells us the outfit hopes to expand the program to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Central Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, reaching 1 million healthcare workers by the end of 2015. [Image courtesy of Intel]
IBM's Watson set to tackle health insurance, takes 'Diagnosis for $1,000'
After tackling your tech support woes, the famed Watson is moving on to mop up the health insurance industry. That's right, the IBM showstopper we all know and love for trouncing trivia kings on Jeopardy has been hired by one of the largest health insurance company's in the US. WellPoint Inc. will make use of the system's breakneck speed and healthcare database alongside patient records -- allowing the supercomputer to guide treatment options and prescribe medicines. Once implemented, data will be combined from three sources in a matter of seconds: a patient's chart / records from a doctor, the insurance company's patient history and the medical knowledge that Watson already possesses. A pilot program will roll out next year to a number of cancer facilities, academic medical centers and oncology practices. No word yet on when The Watson School of Medicine will start accepting applications.
iTriage 3.0 adds live wait times for acute care facilities, medicine information and more
When TUAW last talked with the folks behind iTriage, it was shortly before World Health Day in 2010, and the app had just updated to version 2.0 with a version for Android. A little more than 16 months later, iTriage has hit version 3.0 with a plethora of changes and new features such as: Expanded disease treatment support where people can select a symptom and find the right doctor based on the symptom, care facility or prescription. Mapped medications where you can select a problem, such as a cough or cold, find the cause, then peruse medications and possible treatments. More than 1,000 common prescriptions and over-the-counter medications are listed to date. Search for urgent care facilities and see live wait times for acute care. Pre-registration and appointments rolled out. Updated interface adding improved provider search and access to key nationwide emergency hotlines and 911. Dr. Peter Hudson, one of the app's creators, told me that more than 700 hospitals, 400 urgent care clinics and 14,000 doctors are providing data for iTriage, and the number is growing. While I was hard-pressed to find participating physicans and hospitals in the Harrisburg area, I got a good glimpse of the new features by switching the location to Denver. Several of the hospitals listed live wait times for both pediatric and regular emergency care. One had the appointment/pre-registration list deployed. Check out these new features in the gallery below. %Gallery-131117% The app is extremely well-regarded, and it's easy to see why. I'm still feeling my way around central Pennsylvania, and it's nice to see where a hospital or pharmacy is close to me should I need it. "We're trying to make it really simple for people," Hudson said. The app is closing in on 3 million downloads spanning both iOS and Android, Hudson said. What'e more, 60 percent of those who have downloaded the app keep it on their mobile device, which Hudson said is 18 times higher than the average app retention. Future plans include additional functionality for consumers to connect with health care providers and with people in the same area who have suffered like injuries. iTriage 3.0 is a free download in the App Store.
Tiny RFID amulet stores medical records, makes paramedics' lives easier
Using RFID to store medical records, ultimately making the jobs of paramedics and doctors that much easier, is hardly a new concept. But, for the most part, such devices have been limited to clinical trials. Asahi Kasei Corp. is hoping to change that with the debut of a tiny, 3cm-square charm that can be read by a computer or smartphone. In addition to basic info, such as name, birth date, and blood type, the chip could transmit links to more storage-intensive data like X-rays images. Instead of building out a proprietary system, the company is relying on established technology called FeliCa from Sony. That means the device will enjoy broad compatibility with existing products, and should be inexpensive to produce. Asahi Kasei hopes to begin selling the medical amulets to cities and hospitals within a year, for as little as ¥2,000 (around $25).
$1 chip tests for HIV in 15 minutes flat, fits in your wallet
Getting tested for STDs used to mean a doctor's visit, vials of blood, and days, weeks, or even months of anxiously waiting for results. mChip aims to change all that, while simultaneously ridding your brain of viable excuses not to get tested. It works as such: one drop of blood goes on the microfluidics-based optical chip, 15 minutes pass, and boom, the AmEx-sized device will confirm whether or not you have syphilis and / or HIV. The bantam gizmo is practically foolproof, as reading the results doesn't require any human interpretation whatsoever. Plus, it's cheap -- cheaper than a coffee at Starbucks. One dollar cheap. Researchers at Columbia University claim the mChip has a 100 percent detection rate, although there's a four to six percent chance of getting a false positive -- a stat similar to traditional lab tests. As you'd likely expect, there's hope that the inexpensive mChip will help testing efforts in places like Africa to detect HIV before it turns into AIDS. Next stop: the self-service pharmacy at CVS?
RIBA-II healthcare robot now stronger, smarter -- still a bear
RIKEN's original RIBA healthcare robot was already fairly adept at lifting patients while not completely terrifying them but, as is the case with such things, it's now been succeeded by a new and improved model. While its outward, bear-like appearance hasn't changed, the new bot boasts a series of upgrades that now lets it bend over and lift patients up directly off the floor, not just off a bed or wheelchair. It's also now able to lift patients that weight up to 176 pounds (41 pounds more than before), and it packs an array of new sensors that let it more accurately gauge a person's weight and carry them more comfortably -- not to mention some touchscreen controls on its back for when it needs a bit of direction. Hit the source link below for a video. [Thanks, robotbling]
iPhone 4 turned into a microscope via CellScope attachment
CellScope is a UC Berkeley project designed to enable microscopic image captures from a cell phone's camera. At first it might sound like a pointlessly geeky project to do microscopy on a cell phone, but in fact it has important applications for mobile health services in remote areas. In some areas of sub-Saharan Africa and other developing areas of the world, access to health care of any kind is scarce, and it often falls upon poorly-equipped doctors or volunteers to take up the slack. Since health care equipment is generally expensive to begin with, outfitting even a low-power microscope with a wireless transmitter capable of communicating with doctors at a remote location could easily run into the thousands of dollars. Not only that, but the equipment itself would likely be bulky, temperamental, and easily damaged. That's where CellScope comes in. Via an attachment, CellScope can turn a standard cell phone camera into a 5x to 50x microscope, essentially creating a miniaturized blood lab that can capture images and transmit them far more cheaply than traditional equipment. The iPhone 4 pictured above (courtesy of Scott Silverman) isn't the first mobile phone to be hooked into the CellScope rig, but with its high-quality camera and extensive photo sharing abilities, it might end up being the best mobile device for the job. Plus, viewing microscopic images on a Retina Display sounds like a great alternative to peering into one of those microscope eyepieces. This obviously won't replace traditional setups in a fully-equipped laboratory, but for the kind of remote and rural applications that CellScope covers, it sounds like an ideal solution.
London's E-Health Cloud program will send patient records to the stratosphere next month
You'd think that the recent spate of high-profile cyberattacks would've deterred the healthcare industry from sending patient records to the cloud -- but you'd be wrong. Beginning next month, all data on patients at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital will be stored in a centralized database, accessible from any computer, smartphone or tablet. Under the National Health Service's pilot program, known as E-Health Cloud, patients will be able to decide which doctors, nurses or family members can view their records, allowing them to easily share their data with other specialists. Flexiant, the Scottish software company that developed the platform, hopes to eventually expand it to other treatment phases, including assisted living, and insists that its system will help the NHS save money in the long-term. Security, however, will likely prove critical to the program's success. Users will have to pass multiple ID checkpoints to access the database, but privacy-wary Londoners might demand protection a bit more robust than an automated bouncer. You won't need to adhere to a dress code to view the full PR, available after the break.
Stats of the Union brings American demographic data to the iPad
If you have an interest in American demographics and statistics, you need to check out the Stats of the Union iPad app. Statistics are only useful when you have a clear way of organizing and viewing the data. Without being able to do that, you can't glean any useful information from the numbers. What Stats of the Union does is take a host of data from the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) report and present it on an interactive, color-coded map. Stats of the Union allows you to visualize any number of statistics for the entire country, all the way down to the county level. There are multiple subcategories in the seven prime categories including Summary, Demographics, Births, Deaths, At-Risk Groups, Diseases, and Risk Factors. For example, with a few taps I can see that in the county where I grew up (St. Louis County), life expectancy is 77.4 years, and population is 991,830. 20 percent of those people are at risk of health issues from smoking, and 102,548 people under the age of 65 (over 10 percent of the population) lack health insurance. Those stats are only a small fraction of the information I can examine in the app. Stats of the Union is one of those apps that shows just how powerful of a learning tool the iPad can be. For those of you wondering, the app isn't political; it just presents a lot of complex data in an easy-to-view form and asks users to make their own conclusions about America's health. Stats of the Union is a free download.
Phone Oximeter saves lives, puts Journey's lawyers on red alert (video)
We'll be honest with you, we don't know a lot about marketing healthcare devices to everyday people, so perhaps posting a goofy YouTube video with some re-written classic rock songs is standard practice in the industry. Whatever the case, the University of British Columbia's Electrical & Computer Engineering in Medicine team managed to bring its Phone Oximeter to our attention, and all said, this could be a handy little device for monitoring vitals outside a hospital setting. The meter hooks up to a smartphone -- an iPhone for trials, but we're told it works with Android, Windows, and others -- displaying the wearer's blood oxygen level and heart and respiratory rates, and transmitting the readings to the hospital. The department has already done some field testing with the system, trying it out at the Vancouver General Hospital and bringing it to Uganda, where low cost medical devices and Journey spoofs are in high demand. Video probably only meant for its creators' friends and family after the break. [Thanks, Walter]
