Soon, you can click online for health care records

Posted on by

Health care technology company Practo aims to make its presence felt in 100 cities, innovating to stay ahead in the fragmented sector

For Saurabh, a medical practitioner at a leading private hospital in Delhi, the wait for medical reports on one of his patients from Bihar was agonising.

At times, immediate treatment is essential, he said, But it is difficult to prescribe without being familiar with the full medical history of the patient.

Delays such as the one Saurabh faced often lead to problems. Also, paper reports get old and illegible over time, he said.

To address this gap in the health care system, two BTech (Bachelor of technology) students at the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, Karnataka, designed a software in 2008.

They called it Practo Ray.

After consulting with doctors and tweaking it according to the feedback, they launched it commercially the next year.

An instant hit

It was an instant hit, said 27-year-old Shashank N D, founder and chief executive officer of Bengaluru-based Practo.

Nearly 30,000 doctors use our software. We double our subscription every six months.

Read the original here:

Soon, you can click online for health care records

The Wall Street Journal: KPMG to buy health-care consultant Beacon Partners

Posted on by

KPMG LLP has agreed to acquire the assets of health-care consulting firm Beacon Partners Inc., a Weymouth, Mass., firm that provides management consulting services to hospitals, physician groups and other health-care providers.

KPMG LLP has agreed to acquire the assets of health-care consulting firm Beacon Partners Inc., as the Big Four accounting and professional-services giant continues beefing up its services to clients in the health-care industry.

Financial terms arent being disclosed for the deal, which KPMG announced Sunday.

Beacon Partners, based in Weymouth, Mass., provides management consulting services to hospitals, physician groups and other health-care providers. The firm has annual revenue of more than $60 million.

KPMGs agreement to buy Beacon is the latest step in the bigger firms attempt to strengthen its position in the health-care industry, especially in terms of information technology. Health-care consulting is expected to grow significantly in the coming years as a result of the Affordable Care Act health-care law and trends like the growth of big data.

Last June, KPMG bought Zanett Commercial Solutions, a Cincinnati-based technology-consulting firm with a significant focus on health care. KPMG also acquired Cynergy Systems Inc., a digital and mobile technology business, in February 2014.

An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com

Continued here:

The Wall Street Journal: KPMG to buy health-care consultant Beacon Partners

Health Care Sector Update for 04/13/2015: NEOT, AEZS, REPH

Posted on by

Top Health-care stocks:

JNJ: -0.1%

PFE: -0.3%

ABT: flat

MRK: flat

AMGN: flat

Health-care shares were generally unchanged in pre-market trade Monday.

In health-care stocks news, Shares of Neothetics Inc. ( NEOT ) gained pre-market Monday after the company said it is commencing two pivotal Phase 3 trials to determine the efficacy, safety and tolerability of LIPO-202 for reducing central abdominal bulging. The specialty pharmaceutical firm said the two trials will be conducted in approximately 80 sites across the U.S and enroll a total of 1,600 patients.

Shares in the company were trading 1.2% higher at $8.25 during pre-market trading . Over the past 52 weeks, the company has traded between $6.11 and $14.10.

AEterna Zentaris ( AEZS ) said Monday it plans to conduct a phase 3 clinical study to demonstrate the efficacy of Macrilen (macimorelin), an orally-active ghrelin agonist for use in evaluating adult growth hormone deficiency ( AGHD ). The study will also evaluate the effects of Macrilen on myocardial repolarization.

View post:

Health Care Sector Update for 04/13/2015: NEOT, AEZS, REPH

On the heels of a shift in its business model, Inova invests in analytics

Posted on by

Many of the companies in the health-care system are rethinking business strategies, and Inova Health System, the Northern Virginia hospital giant, is no exception.

Last June, Inova announced a venture with insurance titan Aetna one of the first such partnerships in the country between entities usually economically at odds to deliver care more affordably.

Teaming up with an insurance business brings challenges for a traditional hospital system: Rather than just caring for sick patients, the company sees itself as managing peoples overall health and dealing with all the complications of that task.

To help chart its path, Inova is hiring a director of health-care economics to build a team of financial analysts that can translate patient data into optimized use of resources.

The Washington Post spoke with Glenn Lohrmann, Inovas chief financial officer for population health services, about where the industry is headed. The interview was edited for brevity.

Q. Why does a hospital system need an economics department?

A. There is so much pressure on health-care organizations these days because were supposed to provide the best care possible but do it in an efficient manner.

That means there has to be much more of a focus on prevention and wellness. Thats the transition thats been in place for 30 years, and its picked up steam with the Affordable Care Act.

What sort of people do you need to hire to conduct this sort of analysis?

For this position, we need someone who is strong with their data manipulation abilities the data sets we are dealing with are just huge but we also need someone who understands health-care claims, including how they are coded as presented from providers. They dont need to know everything the way a doctor would, but they do need to be able to intelligently converse with the people who are processing claims.

View original post here:

On the heels of a shift in its business model, Inova invests in analytics

Aetna, Cigna balk as Angelina effect spurs genetic cancer testing

Posted on by

Medical researchers call it the "Angelina Effect," the surge in demand for genetic testing attributable to movie star Angelina Jolie's public crusade for more aggressive detection of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

But there's a catch: Major insurance companies including Aetna, Anthem and Cigna are declining to pay for the latest generation of tests, known as multi-gene panel tests, Reuters has learned. The insurers say that the tests are unproven and may lead patients to seek out medical care they don't need.

That's a dangerous miscalculation, a range of doctors, genetic counselors, academics and diagnostics companies said. While they acknowledge that multi-gene tests produce data that may not be useful from a diagnostic standpoint, they say that by refusing or delaying coverage, insurance companies are endangering patients who could be undergoing screenings or changing their diets if they knew about the possible risks.

The tests have come a long way since Jolie, 39, went public in 2013, revealing that she underwent a double mastectomy after a genetic test found she carried mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, indicating a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. She disclosed last month that she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.

The new panel tests, which can cost between $2,000 to $4,900, analyze 20 or more genes at once. That allows healthcare professionals to establish possible DNA links to other cancer-related conditions such as Lynch syndrome and Li-Fraumeni Syndrome earlier. Humans have about 23,000 genes.

Susan Kutner, a surgeon at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in San Jose, California, who serves on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on young women and breast cancer, said more women with a family history of cancer should be able get these tests.

"If we have members who are not being tested in a timely manner, we know that their risk of cancer in the long run costs us and them a lot more," Kutner said.

Kaiser, which insures its own members, covers panel tests for patients with family histories of cancer.

That's not so at three of the four largest managed care companies. Aetna Inc, Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp state in their policies that in most cases they don't cover multi-gene panel tests. The fourth, UnitedHealth Group, covers the tests if patients meet certain criteria.

All insurers cover screenings for BRCA1 and BRCA2 and for certain other genes for women who have family histories of cancer. Indeed, such coverage is mandated by the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

Go here to see the original:

Aetna, Cigna balk as Angelina effect spurs genetic cancer testing

The Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls CMC Section of a Gene Therapy IND – Video

Posted on by


The Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls CMC Section of a Gene Therapy IND
FDA Presentation for "The Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) Section of a Gene Therapy IND" Other Information - UDI webinar (LIVE) at http://www.globalcomplianceseminar.com - Providing ...

By: Chris Leo

Read more from the original source:

The Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls CMC Section of a Gene Therapy IND - Video

Study: Gene therapy superior to half-matched transplant for 'bubble boy disease'

Posted on by

Research first to compare alternative approaches to fully matched transplant for rare immune disorder

(WASHINGTON - April 13, 2015) - New research published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), reports that children with "bubble boy disease" who undergo gene therapy have fewer infections and hospitalizations than those receiving stem cells from a partially matched donor. The research is the first to compare outcomes among children with the rare immune disorder - also known as X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1) - receiving the two therapeutic approaches.

Children with SCID-X1 are born with a genetic defect that prevents them from developing a normal immune system. Because they are prone to life-threatening infections, infants with SCID-X1 must be kept in a sterile, protective bubble and require extensive treatment for survival beyond infancy. Infants with SCID are most likely to survive if they receive a stem cell transplant from a fully matched donor - typically a sibling - a procedure that replaces an infant's diseased stem cells with healthy donor cells. Following a successful fully matched transplant, infants with SCID-X1 are able to produce their own immune cells for the first time.

In the absence of a fully matched stem cell donor, infants with SCID-X1 may receive a transplant from a partial, or "half-matched," donor - typically their mother or father. They may also undergo gene therapy, a much different approach. Gene therapy for SCID-X1 involves extracting an infant's own bone marrow, using a virus to replace faulty genetic material with a correct copy, and then giving "corrected" bone marrow back to the patient. Half-matched stem cell transplant and gene therapy represent secondary treatment approaches for infants with SCID-X1. Until recently, researchers had not yet compared outcomes among children treated with each respective approach.

"Over the last decade, gene therapy has emerged as a viable alternative to a partial matched stem cell transplant for infants with SCID-X1," said lead study author Fabien Touzot, MD, PhD, of Necker Children's Hospital in Paris. "To ensure that we are providing the best alternative therapy possible, we wanted to compare outcomes among infants treated with gene therapy and infants receiving partial matched transplants."

Dr. Touzot and colleagues studied the medical records of 27 children who received either partial-matched transplant (13) or gene therapy (14) for SCID-X1 at Necker Children's Hospital between 1999 and 2013. The children receiving half-matched transplants and the children receiving gene therapy had been followed for a median of six and 12 years, respectively.

The researchers compared immune, or T-cell, development among patients and also compared key clinical outcomes such as infections and hospitalization. Investigators observed that the 14 children in the gene therapy group developed healthy immune cells faster than the 13 children in the half-matched transplant group. In fact, in the first six months after therapy, T cell counts had reached normal values for age in more than three-fourths (78%) of the gene therapy patients, compared to roughly one-fourth (26%) of the transplant group. The more rapid growth of the immune system in gene therapy patients was also associated with faster resolution of some opportunistic infections (11 months in gene therapy group vs. 25.5 months in half-matched transplant group). These patients also had fewer infection-related hospitalizations (3 in gene therapy group vs. 15 in half-matched transplant group).

"Our analysis suggests that gene therapy can put these incredibly sick children on the road to defending themselves against infection faster than a half-matched transplant," Dr. Touzot said. "These results suggest that for patients without a fully matched stem cell donor, gene therapy is the next-best approach."

###

Blood, the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology, is available weekly in print and online. Blood is the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.

More here:

Study: Gene therapy superior to half-matched transplant for 'bubble boy disease'

Virtual Reality Can Change The Hospital Experience – The Medical Futurist – Video

Posted on by


Virtual Reality Can Change The Hospital Experience - The Medical Futurist
How the Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheus or Google Cardboard could change the whole healthcare experience for physicians and patients with virtual reality. Examples, applications and ideas for the...

By: The Medical Futurist

Link:

Virtual Reality Can Change The Hospital Experience - The Medical Futurist - Video

Rackspace’s futurist visits Maker Media lab (Make Magazine in 360-degrees) – Video

Posted on by


Rackspace #39;s futurist visits Maker Media lab (Make Magazine in 360-degrees)
I take my 360 camera to visit Make Magazine #39;s visual lab, which is inside the Innovation Hangar. Here you see the editor #39;s passions for drones, 3D printing, robots, and more. Learn more about...

By: Robert Scoble

More:

Rackspace's futurist visits Maker Media lab (Make Magazine in 360-degrees) - Video

Rohit Talwar (Futurist, Strategic Advisor & Author) at WebTomorrow 2015 in Ghent, Belgium – Video

Posted on by


Rohit Talwar (Futurist, Strategic Advisor Author) at WebTomorrow 2015 in Ghent, Belgium
Which Opportunities Could The Digital Future Bring For Your Business? - KEYNOTE Rohit Talwar (UK) - CEO, Fast Future Research - Futurist, Strategic Advisor Author In this talk, global futurist...

By: Bloovi

Visit link:

Rohit Talwar (Futurist, Strategic Advisor & Author) at WebTomorrow 2015 in Ghent, Belgium - Video

Futurist Jack Uldrich: Yesterdays Lessons, Todays Visions, Tomorrows Reality

Posted on by

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) April 13, 2015

Today, April 13th, Industrial futurist Jack Uldrich is slated to keynote Stiles Executive Briefing Conference. The conference which will "provide decision makers with the knowledge, strategies and attitude necessary for success in today's manufacturing world" opened yesterday and will run through Tuesday, April 14th.

Uldrich, playing with Stiles' theme of Be part of the vision by helping to create "whats next" will deliver a custom designed keynote address: Yesterdays Lessons, Todays Visions, Tomorrows Reality.

His call and response to his audiences is: "What will the world of tomorrow look like? The time to start thinking about this is now."

In his article, 3D Manufacturing is Out of This World - Literally Uldrich touches on just how far 3D printing will take the world of manufacturing, and that, he says is out of this world and into outer space. Additionally he says, "Another out of this world concept is that a little over five years ago, a 3D printera device that can manufacture physical objectscost $100,000. Today, similar printers are available for $1000 and are poised to revolutionize the world of manufacturing."

Uldrich travels the world speaking on future trends, emerging technologies, innovation change management and leadership. His manufacturing clients include the PMA, Siemens, the IBD, and PMMI. Other leading clients include Verizon Wireless, ABB/Thomas and Betts and Emerson.

Jack is a best-selling author and frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC and NPR. He is highly regarded for his unique ability to present complex information in an entertaining, understandable and digestible manner. Following his keynote at EBC, this week he will present to BCBS of North Carolina in Raleigh, Foth & Van Dyke in Green Bay and the North Carolina Association of Coops in also in Raleigh, NC.

Parties interested in learning more about him, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about either the event or interviewing Jack as a futurist or trend expert can contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.

Link:

Futurist Jack Uldrich: Yesterdays Lessons, Todays Visions, Tomorrows Reality

RV Life | COSTCO Haul & Food Storage in an RV | The Freedom Theory – Video

Posted on by


RV Life | COSTCO Haul Food Storage in an RV | The Freedom Theory
So I live in an RV and still shop at Costco. Couple of reasons why. Josh and I like to eat very clean and one way to do that on a budget is by shopping at Costco. They always seem to have the...

By: The Freedom Theory | RV Living

Link:

RV Life | COSTCO Haul & Food Storage in an RV | The Freedom Theory - Video