The top 10 health IT predictions from Information Week cover everything from electronic health records (EHRs) to accountable care organizations (ACOs). But perhaps the most significant is just how much more healthcare will change in 2012, according to writer Brian Buntz.
Buntz noted in his story that the three most important trends by the end of 2012 will be: the majority of U.S. providers switching over to EHRs, successful ACOs becoming established and healthcare professionals being judged on outcomes before being paid (http://www.healthtechzone.com/topics/healthcare/articles/249950-top-10-healthcare-it-trends-ehrs-acos-pay.htm).
Can you remember the last time you got a letter, a real, hand-written letter? You probably felt very connected to the person who wrote it. It may even have made your day. But did you know it also might have saved your life? Researchers at the University of Denver have found, in a study involving soldiers serving in war zones, most in Iraq, that letters from home – just a few words scribbled on paper, or even in an email – may protect them “against one of war's most insidious and long-lasting wounds”, according to a story by Dennis Thompson at HealthDay, as posted at news.yahoo.com. Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Swimming robots; that’s what they’re calling these tiny robots, powered by MRI magnetism, that are implanted in a child’s cerebrospinal fluid or the urinary tract, to provide targeted therapies like delivering stem cells or drugs to specific locations or to take biopsies in a much less traumatic and painful way. They’re also being used to adjust prosthetic devices as the child grows, according to a story by Terry Sharrer at Medical Automation. The same magnetism that generates MRI images might be used to guide “swimming robots” to provide a variety of health services to children. That’s the hope of Pierre Dupont, PhD, chief of Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Imagine, on your 18th birthday, that you are almost consumed in the flames of a car crash, lose both feet, most of your hands and are in the hospital in unbearable pain for six months. This happened to a girl named Caitlin, according to the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors.
How would you go on? Well, one day, children who are just as badly burned as Caitlin might be able to douse their pain by feeling they were cocooned in a block of ice. Or in a polar environment, where they could feel they were “crossing the threshold of reality, to dull (their) pain,” according to Patrick Dube, who is leading a team of medics in Canada to do just that with avatars using “toy-like medical gadgets”.
Anyone out there want to advise a huge organization on developing a new medical scheduling application that works on web and mobile devices and makes it easier to quickly and securely communicate with clients? If you’re interested, please see the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA plans to replace its legacy medical scheduling application for its VistA electronic health record system and wants industry feedback, according to a story by Mary Mosquera. The medical scheduling application has been an essential component of VistA.
Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
