Medical blog » Technology

Executive pledges $100M to hospital for AIDS research

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:46:42 +0000

reports that Phillip Terrence Ragon will announce the gift to Massachusetts General Hospital on Wednesday.
The hospital will get $10 million a year for the next decade to bring together doctors, engineers and biologists from Massachusetts General as well as other research institutions, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The 59-year-old Ragon is the founder and sole owner of InterSystems Corp., a company that provides database software to hospitals and other industries.
Ragon decided to create the institute after witnessing the plight of AIDS patients while visiting South Africa.

Patrick, McGovern tour growing medical company in Westborough

admin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:23:20 +0000

A medical technology company that employs 500 people here should get a significant boost – translating into more jobs – from President Obama’s economic stimulus package, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday.
Patrick’s remarks came during a tour of eClinicalWorks’ Rte. 9 headquarters where he and officials were shown the software that allows physicians and other health care workers to tap into up-to-the-minute information on patients.
“The very good news that’s going on here at eClinicalWorks is about creating jobs for the here and now and creating value for the long-term,” Patrick said. “It’s about how we move to a more modern and forward-looking healthcare system in a way to control cost and reduce errors.”
eClinicalWorks is the kind of company that stands to thrive from the $787 billion stimulus package, which sets aside $19 billion to modernize health care technology.
To benefit a company like eClinicalWorks, the stimulus funding would be given to hospitals, community health centers and doctors’ offices that would buy the company’s record-keeping system.
“In this lousy economic time, eClinicalWorks has 750 employees, 500 right here in Westborough,” said U.S Rep. James McGovern, D-3rd. “This is good news and this is what the stimulus can help support.”
The company produces electronic record-keeping systems that let doctors track patients’ conditions, generate prescriptions and track whether patients actually obtain those prescriptions – all on a tablet PC.
Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, said the stimulus package gave his company a virtual go-ahead after a period of concern over whether to do any more hiring.
“We see that the stimulus bill, at least in terms of healthcare technology, is having a direct impact in the short-term for companies like eClinicalWorks, which is hiring aggressively,” he said. “We forecast over the next two years to bring at least 500 new jobs to Massachusetts. That will essentially serve our customers across the country with the demand that’s expected out of the health care IT bill that’s being passed now.”
In addition to improving the speed and efficiency of medical records, Navani said new technology helps reduce major costs at hospitals and other health care centers.
“Massachusetts has led electronic medical record adoptions with projects like Mass E-Health well before this all became a reality,” Navani said.
McGovern also talked about the Republican opposition he and other Democrats faced when trying to get the stimulus bill passed.
“It’s a little bit ironic that the people who drove this economy into a ditch are complaining about the size of the tow truck,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is this economic stimulus package has real meaning and that meaning is evident here at eClinicalWorks.”

Expansion Of SCHIP Passes, Millions Of Kids Get Health Insurance

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:03:35 +0000

Expansion Of SCHIP Passes, Millions Of Kids Get Health Insurance
Washington (dbTechno) – The Senate has agreed with the House and has approved an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), supplying millions of low-income children with health insurance.
The Senate voted 66-32 in favor of the expansion of the childrens’ health insurance program.
The idea is to help families who earn too much money to fall under Medicaid support, but too little for private health insurance.
As of right now, the SCHIP covers over 6 million kids in terms of providing them with health insurance.
The expansion of the program is going to provide health insurance to another 5 million.
In total, the SCHIP will likely now cover over 11 million kids in the U.S.
The House approved the legislation back on January 14th.
It is now believed that early next week, the legislation will be signed by President Barack Obama.
The expansion of the program will be paid for by raising the cigarette tax.
The cigarette tax is expected to be increased from 39 cents per pack up to $1.
This is the same bill which was vetoed twice by former President George W. Bush.

Christine Lahti checks into USA's hospital

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:18:36 +0000

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FDA Links Hallucinations To ADHD Drugs For Children

admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:18:23 +0000

Washington (dbTechno) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found a link between drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and hallucinations in children.
The FDA study focused on ADHD drugs such as Adderall XR, Focalin, Metadate CD, as well as Ritalin to see if they had any impact at all on the risk that children may suffer from hallucinations.
In total, they found over 850 instances where kids being treated with these drugs had hallucinations.
The most common types of hallucinations sparked great fear in the kids, as they believed that they had bugs and such on their bodies.
The hallucinations in kids on these drugs appears at a far higher rate than believed in the past.
Overall, the FDA found that around 2 out of every 100 children taking the medication suffered a hallucination or psychotic episode.
To discover their data, they looked at nearly 50 different clinical trials.
The study has been published in the journal Pediatrics.

US FDA clears two J&J devices for heart ailment

admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:39:26 +0000

Patrick, McGovern tour growing medical company in Westborough

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:57:17 +0000

A medical technology company that employs 500 people here should get a significant boost – translating into more jobs – from President Obama’s economic stimulus package, Gov. Deval Patrick said yesterday.
Patrick’s remarks came during a tour of eClinicalWorks’ Rte. 9 headquarters where he and officials were shown the software that allows physicians and other health care workers to tap into up-to-the-minute information on patients.
“The very good news that’s going on here at eClinicalWorks is about creating jobs for the here and now and creating value for the long-term,” Patrick said. “It’s about how we move to a more modern and forward-looking healthcare system in a way to control cost and reduce errors.”
eClinicalWorks is the kind of company that stands to thrive from the $787 billion stimulus package, which sets aside $19 billion to modernize health care technology.
To benefit a company like eClinicalWorks, the stimulus funding would be given to hospitals, community health centers and doctors’ offices that would buy the company’s record-keeping system.
“In this lousy economic time, eClinicalWorks has 750 employees, 500 right here in Westborough,” said U.S Rep. James McGovern, D-3rd. “This is good news and this is what the stimulus can help support.”
The company produces electronic record-keeping systems that let doctors track patients’ conditions, generate prescriptions and track whether patients actually obtain those prescriptions – all on a tablet PC.
Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, said the stimulus package gave his company a virtual go-ahead after a period of concern over whether to do any more hiring.
“We see that the stimulus bill, at least in terms of healthcare technology, is having a direct impact in the short-term for companies like eClinicalWorks, which is hiring aggressively,” he said. “We forecast over the next two years to bring at least 500 new jobs to Massachusetts. That will essentially serve our customers across the country with the demand that’s expected out of the health care IT bill that’s being passed now.”
In addition to improving the speed and efficiency of medical records, Navani said new technology helps reduce major costs at hospitals and other health care centers.
“Massachusetts has led electronic medical record adoptions with projects like Mass E-Health well before this all became a reality,” Navani said.
McGovern also talked about the Republican opposition he and other Democrats faced when trying to get the stimulus bill passed.
“It’s a little bit ironic that the people who drove this economy into a ditch are complaining about the size of the tow truck,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is this economic stimulus package has real meaning and that meaning is evident here at eClinicalWorks.”

Reminder – Buffalo Hospital Presents a Live Total Knee Replacement …

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:33:05 +0000

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AstraZeneca says FDA requests Seroquel information

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:00:05 +0000

Medical center shifts jobs north

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:49:15 +0000

Miami County residents can rest assured that upcoming personnel changes at Miami County Medical Center will not result in a reduction of health care services.
On Monday, Miami County Medical Center Chief Operations Officer Jerry Wiesner verified that eight job positions are going to be transferred to Olathe Medical Center as part of an ongoing process. However, he said, the jobs to be transferred are not health care positions, and the medical center will not be reducing its health care services. He also emphasized that no positions are being eliminated.
“I believe eight people are being transferred,” Wiesner said. “We’ve never had layoffs and we never plan to have layoffs. We have jobs available for everyone.”
The positions being transferred to Olathe Health System’s other hospital are business office jobs and, so far, none of the employees involved have refused to make the move.
“We’ve been centralizing our business office for several years. It’s a system-wide initiative to improve our organization,” Wiesner said, adding that centralization of business and accounting functions is not just a trend in the health care industry, but in other industries, too. The reason, he said, is that it increases efficiency and reduces costs.
Health care services at Miami County Medical Center will not be reduced in any way, as a result of these personnel changes, he said. If anything, the changes will help assure that the medical center can continue to provide the best care and most up-to-date technology available.
In fact, Wiesner said, since Miami County Hospital joined Olathe Health System and became Miami County Medical Center in 1996, the facility has doubled both its staff and its health care capabilities.
“We’ve added over 100 procedures and tests, including a full orthopedic program, podiatric surgery and general surgery,” he said.
In addition to inpatient health care, the medical center offers 24-hour emergency care by board-certified emergency physicians, as well as support services such as radiology, laboratory, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy and social services.
Wiesner said even though billing functions will be located in Olathe, Miami County patients need not worry that they won’t be able to obtain answers to their billing questions or that they’ll have to pay long distance rates to do so.
“For patients who have questions with their bills, we’re setting up an 800 number, so they won’t have to call long distance,” he said.
Wiesner said he and other Olathe Health System officials anticipate that the changes will be completed by Feb. 1, 2009.