Processes and Structures in Health Care from the Human Factors Perspective
The Institute for Health Care Systems Management Berlin (HCMB) eG is a consulting cooperative for different facilities in health. We are a spin-off of the De...
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Processes and Structures in Health Care from the Human Factors Perspective - Video
Resist the Health care bill A call for civil disobedience
V R NOT DRAVIDIANS!!! V R D NATIVES OF INDIAN UNION!! V R TAMILS, V SPEAK TAMIL AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT; VERIFY FOR YOURSELF, V R THE FIRST RACE ON PLANET EART...
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Resist the Health care bill A call for civil disobedience - Video
Cognitive Healthcare: From Android Infrastructure to Optimal Information Acquisition
Visit: http://seminars.uctv.tv/) Researchers and clinicians continue to face enormous challenge when searching for biomarkers of stress and health. In addit...
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Cognitive Healthcare: From Android Infrastructure to Optimal Information Acquisition - Video
Why should young adults get health insurance?
No one plans to get sick or hurt, but many young people need medical care at some point. Health insurance covers these costs and protects you from very high ...
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President Barack Obama's budget pushes Health and Human Services spending over $1 trillion for the first time, reflecting an aging population adding to the Medicare rolls, as well as expanded coverage for younger people through the new health law.
Released Tuesday, the HHS budget for the 2015 fiscal year calls for just over $1 trillion, which budget officials said is a new milestone for the department.
HHS runs Medicare, Medicaid and the insurance expansion in Obama's health overhaul law, which together provide coverage for about 1 in 3 Americans. Its growing prominence in the federal budget reflects the rise of benefit programs, which now account for more than two-thirds of all government spending.
And the trillion-dollar HHS budget left out a significant chunk of spending: another $60 billion for tax credits to finance private coverage under the health care law was included in the Treasury Department's budget, since those benefits are delivered through the Internal Revenue Service.
Overall, the HHS spending plan reflected a stay-the-course approach in an election year.
It included some modest new proposals sure to please Democratic constituencies, such as expanded access to HIV and AIDS programs and initiatives to tackle mental health problems among younger people generally, and foster care youth in particular.
It called for $1.8 billion to fund the coverage rollout under the health care law, much of which will go to new online insurance markets in the 36 states served by the HealthCare.gov website. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said fees paid by insurers will cover $1.2 billion, and the administration is asking Congress for the remaining $600 million. If House Republicans again block the request, Sebelius said she is prepared to use her legal authority to transfer funds from elsewhere in the department's budget.
Obama also included some cost-cutting ideas that could serve as a starting point if Democrats and Republicans revive negotiations over a long-term deal to reduce deficits.
His budget called for about $400 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts over 10 years, largely echoing proposals that he's floated before. While the president pulled back on a previous plan to slow down the growth of Social Security benefits, he left Medicare cuts on the table.
Those include an assortment of reductions affecting service providers, from hospitals to rehab centers to drug companies. Obama also called for stepped-up use of competitive bidding to procure medical equipment. And his budget voiced support for a bipartisan plan in Congress to change the way Medicare pays doctors to reward quality and not just the volume of services.
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As health care competition heats up in Massachusetts, upstart Boston hospital chain Steward Health Care System has lured away 150 doctors affiliated with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centers physician group by making them an offer so generous that Beth Israels lawyers question whether its terms amount to illegal kickbacks.
Stewards offer to the doctors in the Whittier Independent Practice Association, based in Newburyport, could potentially bring them as much as $3 million more next year under one key insurance contract, according to Whittiers estimate.
But a law firm hired by Beth Israel suggested that some incentives Steward offered Whittier violate federal and state anti-kickback statutes. Those laws prohibit paying for business that can be billed to government health insurers. A spokesman for Steward, a fast-growing, for-profit health care company, said its contract with Whittier is legal.
The battle between Beth Israel and Steward over Whittier reflects an increasingly aggressive struggle by hospital physicians groups to win over doctors - and the business they can generate - in a radically shifting health care sector.
We have a market full of very competitive leaders, and this [Whittier] switch is a precursor of things to come, said Thomas Glynn, public policy lecturer at Harvards Kennedy School.
Steward officials said they believe executives and doctors at Beth Israel, a Harvard-affiliated Boston teaching hospital, are rankled not only by the impending defection of their doctors, but by the Steward business model. That model seeks to keep health care local by leveraging the power of the 10 community hospitals Steward bought in Eastern Massachusetts over the past year.
Theres a large amount of care that could be appropriately done in the community that is leaking to high-cost hospitals in Boston, said Dr. Mark Girard, president of Steward Health Care Network, the physicians organization in Stewards hospital system.
Whittier wants to join Steward on Jan. 1 so it can take part in a potentially lucrative insurance contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. But that date is just 50 days away, and the doctors group is required to give 180 days notice before it can end its affiliation with the Beth Israel Deaconess Physicians Organization, known as BIDPO. That means that Beth Israel would have to sign a waiver to let the doctors go - something it has not yet agreed to do.
This is a disappointment, said Dr. Stuart A. Rosenberg, president of the hospitals physician group and a member of the Beth Israel board of trustees. It would be foolish to say otherwise. Wed prefer to gain members than to lose members. Beth Israel physicians signed their own affiliation deal with Whittier less than three years ago.
While some doctors are employed by hospitals, many choose to remain independent. But they usually affiliate with hospitals so they can refer patients. Community hospital groups, for their part, often seek to join larger physicians organizations allied with Bostons academic medical centers so they can coordinate patient care and jointly negotiate insurance contracts.
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Steward snatches 150 doctors affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess physicians group
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
4-Mar-2014
Contact: John Ascenzi ascenzi@email.chop.edu 267-426-6055 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Two recent genetic studies expand the list of genes involved with body fat and body mass index, and their connection to major Western health problems: heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. One study showed that higher body mass index (BMI) caused harmful effects on the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and inflammation, while another study found gene signals linked to higher levels of body fat metrics, without showing causality.
"These findings are highly relevant to the obesity pandemic in the United States and many other countries," said geneticist Brendan J. Keating, D. Phil., of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Of course, much research remains to be performed to discover further genes involved in these complex metabolic diseases, and to better understand how to improve treatments."
Keating, who previously helped create a large gene-discovery tool called the Cardio Chip, was a co-leader of both studies, which drew on large international teams of scientists using DNA, laboratory and disease data from tens of thousands of people.
In the BMI research, published in the Feb. 6 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, Keating collaborated with clinical epidemiologist Michael V. Holmes, M.D., Ph.D., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. That study used a recently developed epidemiology tool called Mendelian randomization (MR) that rules out confounding factors such as behavioral and environmental influences to construct genetic risk scores for specific traits of interest.
The study team analyzed eight population cohorts including over 34,000 individuals of European descent, of whom over 4,400 had type 2 diabetes, over 6,000 had coronary heart disease and over 3,800 had a previous stroke.
Their analysis, concluded the authors, supports the importance of BMI in regulating cardiometabolic traits and the risk of type 2 diabetes. "Our findings suggest that lowering BMI is likely to result in multiple reductions of cardiovascular traits: in blood pressure, inflammation, fasting glucose and insulin, and in the risk of type 2 diabetes," said Keating.
"This study is the first to use this emerging MR technique with a combination of genetic markers known to impact BMI, to assess the causal relationship of BMI and a comprehensive repertoire of traits," said Holmes. He added that, although the study showed that increasing BMI has an undesirable effect on cardiometabolic factors, interestingly, it did not show that higher BMI increased the risk of coronary heart disease.
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CHOP researcher finds more genetic signals linking weight and heart health risk factors
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Newswise Philadelphia, March 4, 2014 Two recent genetic studies expand the list of genes involved with body fat and body mass index, and their connection to major Western health problems: heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. One study showed that higher body mass index (BMI) caused harmful effects on the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and inflammation, while another study found gene signals linked to higher levels of body fat metrics, without showing causality.
These findings are highly relevant to the obesity pandemic in the United States and many other countries, said geneticist Brendan J. Keating, D. Phil., of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Of course, much research remains to be performed to discover further genes involved in these complex metabolic diseases, and to better understand how to improve treatments.
Keating, who previously helped create a large gene-discovery tool called the Cardio Chip, was a co-leader of both studies, which drew on large international teams of scientists using DNA, laboratory and disease data from tens of thousands of people.
In the BMI research, published in the Feb. 6 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, Keating collaborated with clinical epidemiologist Michael V. Holmes, M.D., Ph.D., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. That study used a recently developed epidemiology tool called Mendelian randomization (MR) that rules out confounding factors such as behavioral and environmental influences to construct genetic risk scores for specific traits of interest.
The study team analyzed eight population cohorts including over 34,000 individuals of European descent, of whom over 4,400 had type 2 diabetes, over 6,000 had coronary heart disease and over 3,800 had a previous stroke.
Their analysis, concluded the authors, supports the importance of BMI in regulating cardiometabolic traits and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Our findings suggest that lowering BMI is likely to result in multiple reductions of cardiovascular traits: in blood pressure, inflammation, fasting glucose and insulin, and in the risk of type 2 diabetes, said Keating.
This study is the first to use this emerging MR technique with a combination of genetic markers known to impact BMI, to assess the causal relationship of BMI and a comprehensive repertoire of traits, said Holmes. He added that, although the study showed that increasing BMI has an undesirable effect on cardiometabolic factors, interestingly, it did not show that higher BMI increased the risk of coronary heart disease.
Keating also co-led a second study, published Jan. 6 in Human Molecular Genetics, analyzing genes associated with central adiposity. Measures of central adiposity, or body fat, can be derived using waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio. For assessing the influence of weight-related genes, central adiposity is preferable to BMI, because BMI also reflects the influence of genes affecting height, said Keating.
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Researcher Finds More Genetic Signals Linking Weight and Risk Factors in Heart Health
FORTUNE --FirstMark Capital is known for investing in consumer-facing software companies like Pinterest, Riot Games, and Aereo, as well as enterprise deals. But since Matt Turck, a former investor with Bloomberg Ventures, joined the firm one year ago, he's been looking at deals that are more out-there, related to big data and the Internet of Things. Take, for example, his latest investment: Recombine, a bioinformatics company.
Alongside new early-stage firm Vast Ventures, FirstMark has invested $3.3 million in the New York-based startup. Angel investors who participated in the round include Vivek Garipalli, formerly of Blackstone Group (BX), as well as Alexander Saint-Amand, President and CEO of Gerson Lehrman Group, and Zach Weinberg and Nat Turner, who co-founded health care startup Flatiron Health.
Currently, Recombine provides clinical genetic testing services which are faster and cheaper than those offered by LabCo Diagnostic Network and Quest Diagnostics (DGX), the incumbent providers. Those companies' technology, much of which was created in the 1970s, requires a separate test (and separate blood samples) to test for each individual disease, and it costs up to $1,000 for each test. Recombine tests for 213 genetic disorders at once, costing $500 before insurance.
MORE:Apple's CFO says see you in Sept., after 100,000 shares vest
Recombine CEO Alexander Bisignano says the incumbent services use older technology and aren't incentivized to upgrade because they have exclusive contracts with insurance companies. "It is sort of a monopoly," he says. Recombine's services are in use at 60 different medical practices.
But disrupting the medical lab industry is not Recombine's ultimate goal. The company has its sights on something it believes is much more lucrative: big data for genetics. That's where Recombine fits into FirstMark's investment thesis. More than a biotech company, it's a big data company, Turck argues. From his blog post Tuesday:
Recombine has ambitious plans to fully leverage Big Data technology to help decode the myriad aspects of our genome that are still not well understood.
Naturally, Bisignano agrees. "Genetics is entering a future where it is nothing but a data science," he says.
By processing all of the data from its tests, Recombine can glean insights about genes and diseases. The data is anonymous, and Recombine has already obtained Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval to conduct its first large-scale study. "We're getting really high-quality medical data that allows us to be more confident that the signal is outweighing the noise in our results," Bisignano says.
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Top Scientists and Mothers Appeal to Congress for Breakthrough Therapy
Note: This video was originally posted here: http://youtu.be/DTZizFZOtQY Health staffers from over 80 Congressional offices together with agency and industry...
By: The Race to Yes
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Top Scientists and Mothers Appeal to Congress for Breakthrough Therapy - Video
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Techniques for getting past the immune system are key to safe and effective treatment
Advances in gene therapy over the past 15 years are finally allowing investigators to safely treat a growing number of carefully selected patients with a broad range of defective or missing genes, as reported by Ricki Lewis in the March issue of Scientific American. One of the biggest obstacles researchers have learned to overcome is the immune systems propensity to over-react when thousands of copies of the stripped-down viruses carrying normal genes are injected into the body, mistakenly treating them as foreign invaders.
Lewis describes the problem and various solutions that are being used in detail in her article. This animation, created by Cortical Studios and Cyberfish, demonstrates one technique that scientists now use to circumvent the immune system in the liver.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
4-Mar-2014
Contact: Press Office presse@helmholtz-muenchen.de 49-893-187-2238 Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health
Lentiviruses, which belong to the family of retroviruses, are used as vectors to exchange genetic material in cells and can be used to replace a defective gene as defined by gene therapy. Increasing the efficiency of such a treatment poses a major medical challenge: the virus should specifically track the target cells, but the number of virus used should be as low as possible.
A research team led by Dr. Ines Hfig and Dr. Natasa Anastasov from the Institute of Radiation Biology (ISB) at Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen in cooperation with Sirion Biotech GmbH in Munich and the Fraunhofer Institute in Aachen has now developed an adjuvant which enhances the effect of the virus transduction. Thus the transfer into the target cells is optimized without additional toxicity.
Surface molecules fuse viruses with target cells
The scientists equipped the viruses with additional surface molecules that facilitate the attachment of the viruses to their target cells. The surface molecules consist of a glycoprotein which is fused to an antibody fragment. This antibody fragment detects the surface receptors of specific target cells, such as EGFR+ or CD30+, and binds to these.
Higher transduction rate less virus used
"Through this specific binding to the target cell we can enhance three fold the transduction rate (transfer of the viruses into the target cells)," said research group leader Anastasov. "Thus, the transduction efficiency is improved, and at the same time fewer transfer viruses are needed."
In further studies, analog to the established system, suitable antibody fragments shall be evaluated for specific surface markers of various target cells, e.g. for bone marrow stem cells and immune cells. Gene therapy can thus be used as a treatment for specific genetic disorders (e.g. metachromatic leukodystrophy, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome).
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Frankel Patient Recognized as Young Futurist!
By: Jon Frankel Dentistry
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Futurist Yvette Montero Salvatico: The Future of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)
This is a keynote presentation given by Futurist Yvette Montero Salvatico entitled "The Future of STEM." Mrs. Salvatico is a principal at Kedge LLC, a global...
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Paul Rooney: The Futurist excerpt, 2008
The Futurist Single screen video with sound, 25 mins, 2008. In a dark, apparently derelict cinema, Tony, an amateur Liverpool comedian, chats with other comi...
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Islandia, NY (PRWEB) March 04, 2014
Returning to New York after a series of European presentations in London, Berlin and Paris, acclaimed keynote speaker and futurist Greg Verdino will address members of the Contingency Planning Exchange (CPE) at the association's Long Island Chapter meeting on April 11, 2014. His talk entitled "The HyperNetworked Now" will cover emerging trends in technology and their impact on business, society and individuals. The event, which will be hosted by CA Technologies at its global headquarters in Islandia NY, is free for both CPE members and non-members. Interested attendees can learn more or register on the CPE website.
The Contingency Planning Exchange aims to provide its members with innovative strategies, tools and forums to advance the practice of business continuity and crisis management. Verdino was a natural choice for the inaugural meeting of the association's revitalized Long Island Chapter. His eye opening, thought provoking presentation on The HyperNetworked Now will focus on the Internet of Things and how its adoption by enterprises will create new opportunities while presenting key challenges related to security, privacy, ethics and corporate responsibility. He will also consider the business and societal implications of big data, cloud computing, social networking and global-mobile ecosystems. You can read his thoughts on some of these topics here and here; and watch a previous speech from last year's xPotomac conference here.
Over the course of 24 years working at the forefront of business and technology change, Verdino has served as an advisor to 50 of the Fortune 500 and a speaker at hundreds of events for marquis clients including American Express, The Coca-Cola Company, Hershey, L'Oreal Paris and Novartis. He has appeared on CNBC, Cablevision News12 and MSNBC; and has been quoted in a wide variety of print media including Bloomberg Businessweek, Investors Business Daily, Newsday and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of microMARKETING: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small (McGraw-Hill, 2010) and a contributing author of Reinventing Interactive and Direct Marketing (McGraw-Hill, 2009).
Greg Verdino is founder of Create New Futures -- the foresight consultancy that helps business leaders identify opportunity amidst sweeping change and formulate bold strategies for transformative growth. Parties interested in learning more about his work, his thought leadership activities, or his availability for speaking or consulting projects are encouraged to visit his website gregverdino.com. Media interested in learning more about his upcoming event or in interviewing Greg may contact him directly at 631-747-1451 or greg(at)createnewfutures(dot)com.
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Futurist Greg Verdino to Keynote Contingency Planning Exchange Meeting
Washington, DC (PRWEB) March 04, 2014
The 2014 National Advocacy Conference (NAC) will take place in Washington, DC, from March 4-6, 2014. And futurist Jack Uldrich will kickoff the event with his keynote speech, The Big AHA: How to Future Proof the AMA Leaders Against Tomorrows Transformational Trends, Today. Through the NAC, physicians will have the opportunity to discuss advocacy issues, attend educational sessions on a variety of topics, and visit with their representatives on Capitol Hill.
Uldrich will be giving the AMA leaders a sneak peek at his upcoming book, Business as Unusual: How to Future-Proof Yourself Against Tomorrows Transformational Trends, Today. He will outline the top ten trends in information and communication technologies, robotics, cloud computing, next generation mobile and social technologies, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genomics, wearable technologies, the Internet of Things and Big Data. He will discuss how these technologies, and physicians use of them, will help improve health outcomes, accelerate changes in medical education, and enhance job satisfaction by striving toward less paperwork and more quality time with patients. The speech is specifically designed to provide AMA attendees with a solid foundation upon which they can take action to create their own, and the Associations, success by identifying a series of concrete actions to take in order to future-proof themselves against the tides of tomorrow.
In the past year, Jack Uldrich, who is also recognized as a leading expert in the field of change management and unlearning, has addressed hundreds of organizations both nationally and internationally. Recent engagements include the Million Dollar Round Table in Malaysia, The Allan P. Kirby Lecture Series at Wilkes University. He was also recently awarded the Bellwether Book Award for his book, Foresight 20/20. A synopsis of some of Uldrich's ideas on tomorrow's transformational technologies can be found in this Forbes article: http://smallbusiness.forbes.com/small-business-articles/10-game-changing-technological-trends-transforming-tomorrow-2880 A video of his keynote address at United Health Care can be viewed in this youtube video.
Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.
Jack Uldrich is a renowned global futurist, technology forecaster, best-selling author, editor of the quarterly newsletter, The Exponential Executive, and host of the award-winning website, http://www.jumpthecurve.net. He is also the founder and "Chief Unlearning Officer" of The School of Unlearning - an international leadership, change management and technology consultancy dedicated to helping business, governments, and non-profit organizations prepare for and profit from periods of profound transformation.
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SDR I (2011-12) - Multimedia interpretation (Futurism 1914 vs Future 2012)
By: Xavier Bardina Lamelas
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SDR I (2011-12) - Multimedia interpretation (Futurism 1914 vs Future 2012) - Video
Leonardo DiCaprio sits courtside during Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic in Los Angeles, June 7, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Blake
image credit: Reuters
By Steven Zeitchik
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Ridley Scott is going back to the futurism.
The "Blade Runner" director is joining forces with Leonardo DiCaprio to take on one of the most highly regarded dystopian works of literature, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
Both are producing the Universal project, which DiCaprio would tentatively star in and Scott direct. The studio has brought on "Apocalypto" scribe Farhad Safinia to write the script; he's expected to be working shortly.
Scott has mentioned casually in interviews that he's interested in the 1931 novel, whose film rights are owned by DiCaprio's Appian Way production company, prompting a flurry of rumors on sci-fi and other blogs over the past year. But the studio details as well as DiCaprio's personal involvement always have been murky.
Now, with a writer on board and production executives meeting frequently during the past six months, the project has more momentum, though several people familiar with it emphasize that it remains at the development stage.
Much of the timing going forward will depend on the script. Scott is not committed to direct anything beyond "Robin Hood," which is in post-production. DiCaprio is shooting the Christopher Nolan adventure tale "Inception," but does not have a movie lined up after that.
"Brave" has had several go-rounds on television, including a Leonard Nimoy-Peter Gallagher picture on NBC in 1998. But Huxley's idea-rich novel hasn't had a shot on the big screen.
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2.2 FREEDOM: The Liberated Community
A personal library is introduced as family members who refused closed systems and advanced freedom for humanity. Darwin, Galileo and Freud are a triumvirate ...
By: Ideologies and Human Freedom
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