Hospitals

Studies suggest that anywhere from 2 to 13 percent of patients in emergency rooms are HIV positive, according to Charlotte Gaydos, a clinical microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University. So the emergency room seemed like a logical place to test whether an untrained person is able to self-administer his or her own HIV test, and then accurately read the results (one line means negative, two lines mean positive).

In an urban hospital, researchers from Johns Hopkins offered people in the emergency room the option to test themselves for HIV while they waited. More than 90 percent of the people they asked … Read more

The government's $19 billion incentive package to compel doctors and hospitals to digitize their inefficient paper record systems is nice and shiny. But until a platform exists to support the easy yet secure flow of highly sensitive personal information, that promise could also be empty.

Seeing a business opportunity, General Electric unveiled on Thursday its new unit, eHealth, a suite of solutions that aims to provide the necessary infrastructure. (GE reports that it is investing $90 million to launch eHealth.) It is a daunting task, but if it works, a digital record system that streamlines connectivity between clinicians and … Read more

Officials at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) announced Tuesday that the state's Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) registry is going digital on or near December 1.

Until now, as a POLST program coordinator explained to me, someone with chronic or terminal illness has had the option to go to a doctor's office and fill out a POLST form in the presence of a doctor or nurse, and then keep the document at home where, ideally, emergency medical personnel could find it (such as the refrigerator). If the paper is lost, determining the wishes of the patient … Read more

Every year, some 16,000 babies in the U.S. experience loss of vision due to retinopathy of prematurity (RoP), with 400 to 600 becoming legally blind, according to the National Eye Institute. When babies are born prematurely, their retinal blood vessels don't always develop fully, and the abnormal vessels are more prone to leaking and contracting. If that causes the retina to detach, babies can lose some or all vision.

A new handheld device, developed in part by biomedical engineers at Duke University Medical Center, uses something called spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT) to create a 3D image of the back of the eye.

Duke Eye Center ophthalmologist Cynthia Toth compares the process to inspecting fish from the side of an aquarium instead of through an ocean's murky surface; the 3D high-resolution map reveals the retina's layers in intricate detail "at almost the cellular level," she says.… Read more

One key component of U.S. health care reform is the move toward digital medical records. Dell is hoping to play a role in that move.

Dell announced Thursday a new service to help doctors and hospitals more easily switch to electronic medical records (EMR).

Already in use by certain hospitals, the new EMR service--a combination of hardware, software, and support--is designed to make the transition from paper to digital records more affordable and practical for the average physician or medical staff.

Dell said its EMR system will also connect doctors and their sponsoring hospitals so they can share patient … Read more

In 2006, Trig Medical, out of Yokneam, Israel, won an award for its visionary (literally) new system, LaborPro, which provides doctors, nurses, and patients with a better window into the birthing process. Just this month, the company has raised several million dollars in financing, according to Globes in Israel.

With the "noninvasive" sweep of a computerized finger, a miniature sensor on the tip of the finger takes measurements of head station and cervical dilation, while ultrasound imaging tracks the station and position of the fetus.

A radiation-free pelvimetry is also performed by touching four places on the mother'… Read more