Dr. David Bluementhal Spearheads U.S. Health Information Technology

Dr. David Bluementhal, former director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been named the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Blumenthal will lead the Obama Adminstration's health information technology initiative to modernize healthcare.

The initiative will serve and a key component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
A bill to create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America's middle class through measures that modernize the nation's infrastructure, enhance America's energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need, and for other purposes.

Dr. David Bluementhal also served as the founding chairman of AcademyHealth, the national organization of health services researchers, and was formerly a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine. In the 1970s, he was a professional staff member on Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.

Health information technology is a critical part of the President’s strategy to reform our healthcare system and Dr. David Bluementhal is the first round pick. Will Bluementhal lead us through an IT Revolution that will bring on American recovery and equality?

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/david-blumenthal-named-new-national-coordinator-health-it
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s1/show

The Robotic Arm

A robotic arm has been created to assist wounded soldiers in the midst of battle. The robotic arm can detect breathing, deliver health supplies and assess the fighter's health condition. The device is controlled with a joystick and is wireless (obviously). The original researchers from Carnegie Mellon are trying to include ultra sound capabilities on the device to detect internal bleeding. The idea is to not limit the bot to just health care but to expand its capabilities to search and rescue, bridge, bomb disarming, and much more.


http://i.gizmodo.com/5145874/cmus-robotic-arm-helps-medics-assist-wounded-soldiers-without-being-in-the-line-of-fire

Got a STD? Tell 'em in a E-card...

Have you ever gotten a STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection also known as a STD) and not told your partner? Many of you may be thinking "Absolutely not!", "OMG, I can't believe she would ask something like that!", and some of you may be saying "Ummm, yeah but...". The point is, we don't talk about this. Correction, we talk about sex, but we don't talk about our short comings or more specifically telling someone that we've learned that we have an STI and they may be infected.

So here's the new thing... STD e-cards. You can actually send an anonymous e-card that tells your sexual partner that you have an STD and recommend that they get checked out. This idea was developed when an epidemic of syphilis in a gay male population encouraged public health researchers to try another tactic. The idea came from the idea that the men wanted to tell their partners, but thought it was difficult to face them with the news. With the decrease in public health funding, e-cards have becoming a contemporary necessity, and according to recipients of the e-cards- it works!. These e-cards are getting the job done because all we want is awareness. So, if you answered "Ummm, yeah but...", or at least thought that you may have responded in a situation like that... this may be for you. Get it out there, get 'em tested.



http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/10/21/std.e-cards/index.html

What's with the Robot?

As hospitals have become more like businesses than sick care hostels, logistics and operation managers have worked diligently to improve overall hospital performance. Performance improvement tactics have included state -of- the-art facilities,electronic medical records, patient management software, and even a few flat screen television purchases. The new hype is all about Aethon's Automated Robotic Delivery Systems- also know as TUGs.

TUGs deliver medications, medical records, supplies, and even food in the hospital. TUGs can often be found dodging patients, employees and even laundry carts with the use of their obstacle navigation and detection system. They use the elevators and park closeby saying "waiting for an unoccupied elevator". Lets just say some people take advantage of their inability to have emotions. I would be pretty upset if everyone was hopping on the elevator that I'd been waiting for for over 5 minutes. However, with all that in mind TUGs still manage to make timely deliveries and impress the business managers. Your social work and humanities groups... not so much. I guess the humanitarian opinion is that TUGs are taking jobs...

What?! TUGs taking jobs? It is a given that they are doing a job that someone else used to manually do. The Aethon website says "the system helps hospitals streamline internal supply chain operations so that nurses and clinical staff can focus less on mundane tasks and more on providing the important human component of patient care". I believe that as the U.S. economy situation becomes worse and time goes on this cute little Robot may be taking over (a very small portion of) job activities.

For more info check out the site or peep the video.
http://www.aethon.com/how/default.php