Coca-Cola New Treatment for Stomach Blockages–Diet and Regular Both Work

This must be why I have no digestive problems, diet coke:)  The success rate is pretty good at 90% for taking care of stomach blockages.  Now you can drink it or it can be introduced via endoscopy procedures, both work.  If Coke doesn’t completely do the job it will shrink the blockage.  If having a Coke doesn’t work there’s always room for the heavy duty stuff.  Things do go better with Coke.  BD

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Doctors are using Coca-Cola to treat patients who have gastric phytobezoar – more commonly referred to as a stomach blockage, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The treatment is now being favored over surgery, as it has a success rate of more than 90 percent, according to researchers from Athens University, which detailed their findings in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

 http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/01/07/coca-cola-successful-new-treatment-for-stomach-blockages/#ixzz2HMNTXAId

MMRGlobal And Interbit Data Enter License Agreement To Sell MMR Patented PHR Technologies With MEDITECH EMR Systems As Relates To MyMedicalRecords.Com With Interbit Solutions

Interbit has been around for quite a while and are they are the only report distribution technology certified for Meaningful Use.  This was new to me as far as the certification as we always talk about medical record software certification especially as this is where the stimulus money lies.  Interbit’s technology works with both MEDITECH and Siemens information systems.  Below is a little information from their Net Delivery systems. 

There’s quite a few companies that exist using the very early Meditech technologies and data bases such as Epic and the owner of MEDITECH standardized the MUMPS for his software which began in the 70s.  I read also on the Interbit site they have signed an agreement with Catholic Health East to use their NetSafe platform across all their hospitals.  This would appear to be some of the clients who would be involved with the license agreement with the patents from MMRGlobal in the US and they have clients outside the US where the patents would apply.

Again I am not a patent expert by any means but try to connect the dots as best I can and this appears that more royalty money is in the making.  Interbit Data shows MMRGlobal as a strategic alliance on their website.  Here’s an interview I did with Bob Lorsch in December that tells more about the PHR patented technologies they own.  BD

MMRGlobal Patent Portfolio, Bob Lorsch, CEO Answers Questions Relative to Patented Technologies

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Jan 07, 2013 (Marketwire via COMTEX) --MMRGlobal, Inc. (OTCQB: MMRF), through its wholly owned subsidiary MyMedicalRecords, Inc. (MMR), and Interbit Data, Inc. (Interbit) have entered into a Non-Exclusive Patent License Agreement to sell MMR-patented technologies and MMRPatientView and MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record (PHR) services to more than 750 hospitals utilizing Interbit's NetDelivery secure software solution. The majority of Interbit NetDelivery installations are on MEDITECH EMR sites where NetDelivery is already certified for Meaningful Use.

The License Agreement grants Interbit certain rights to MMR U.S. Patent Numbers 8,321,240; 8,301,466; 8,117,045; 8,117,646; and 8,121,855, as well as any other health IT patents to be issued pursuant to pending applications in the United States and all its territories as well as any continuations, reissues, and extensions of the patent portfolio (the "MMR Patents"). The initial term of the Agreement is five years and automatically renews to the expiration date of the last licensed patent to expire, which currently in the U.S. is twenty years from the date of filing.

Interbit Data is the creator of secure, reliable and cost-effective software solutions that improve operational efficiency of healthcare providers. The Interbit NetDelivery solution offers seamless and secure delivery of Personal Health Records to patients over the Internet without having to scan, fax or print documents.   Interbit will allow any hospital or clinical facility using NetDelivery to deploy a certified for Meaningful Use solution with MMR's Personal Health Record service prior to deadlines that require Stage 2 Meaningful Use criteria in 2014.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=178404&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1771529&highlight=

ePocrates Finds a Buyer With AthenaHealth Medical Records

A little over a year ago the company was looking to sell their mobile medical records business as they were compared to other electronic medical record companies, a little late to the game.  I like Epocrates and have used their free reference product for years just as consumer for looking up drugs and their formulary tiers as well as basic drug information.  I go back to the “Palm” and “Windows Pocket PC” days for that, so guess I was ahead of my time.  It makes it simple to find information on drugs and to also located alternatives with generic brands too.  I would say AhtenaHealth has a winner here with the Epocrates brand recognition as it was one of the very first mobile apps used by doctors.  Here’s a few back history links.  They did not enter the medical records business until 2010.  I go way back with using ePocrates to even before I started this blog:)

 

Epocrates EHR Too Late For the Show and Looking to Sell Their Mobile Medical Records System

Tri-Care Formularies To Be Listed on Epocrates

Back in 2009 Athenahealth bought Anodyne Health for additional business intelligence in their systems to be integrated with the Athena Collector product.  Also that same year Athena worked with Microsoft HealthVault and Amalga (which is now sold via Caradigm) for pediatric record access at Cook’s Children’s hospital with personal health records and supporting doctors with the AthenaHealth ambulatory medical records program. 

AthenaHealth is located right in the heart of Harvard in Boston and works with them as partner with publishing related healthcare information.  Athenahealth was one of the first medical record companies to “brand” themselves as using the cloud.  Epocrates online help can be accessed here to look up any drug as well as their mobile product which will be incorporated into the Athena mobile app in time.  BD 

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/01/07/athenahealth-goes-mobile-acquires-epocrates-for-293m/

Hospital in China Opens Sex Rooms for Couples Trying to Conceive..

Ok how would this go over in the US, like a lead balloon, besides who wants to be in a sex ward of a hospital anyway.  This is funny as the rooms are decked out and have costumes for those who use the room to play doctor and nurse.  The president of the hospital said "Some Chinese do not understand getting pregnant is also a technical job."…oh yeah since when:)
They do charge $140 a night and sometimes I guess that would cheaper than a hotel room but I guess you still get the hospital food though:)  BD

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To encourage couples with fertility issues to get busy, a hospital in China's Hubei province has opened up gauze-draped, red-lit sex rooms that go for 880 yuan ($140) a night, HugChina reports. Given that the average monthly salary in China is 4,672 yuan ($730), that's a hefty amount to pay to get in the mood at a place not normally associated with romance.

But at Songziniao Hospital in the the city of Wuhan, these so-called "sex wards" go all out. Furnished with a cushy sofa, round bed and erotic art, the chambers offer porn, sex toys and even instructional tapes and books, the Daily Mail writes. And for those who want to play doctor, physician and nurse outfits are available. Stewardess your thing? There's "air hostess" garb, too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/songziniao-hospital-china-sex-rooms_n_2411677.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Robot Vaporizers Reduce Hospital Acquired Infections–R2D2s Come In to Spray the Room With Hydrogen Peroxide

These are definitely interesting little critters but a study at Johns Hopkins say they work.  Hydrogen peroxide like bleach is a cleaner and same issues with being careful with the product.  Evidentially these devices set off a fine mist that adheres to surfaces to do the cleaning.  Hospital acquired infections went down by 64 percent compared to rooms that were not treated.  That seems to be substantial.  They also lowered the risk of infection with drug-resistant enterococci by 80 percent.  The machines had their beginning in Singapore back during the SARS outbreak.  The animations in the video are great.  The two robots are not cheap at 40k for the two of them.  BD



Both robots come together as they each have different functions. 

Horsham, PA - January 2, 2013 - A new study conducted by infection control experts at Johns Hopkins Hospital demonstrates that patients admitted to hospital rooms decontaminated using Bioquell hydrogen peroxide vapor technology, rather than standard cleaning protocols, were significantly less likely to acquire multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), or so-called hospital superbugs. The study is published in this month’s issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The Bioquell system consists of automated devices that disperse an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered sterilant into the air and onto surfaces and then convert the sterilant to a harmless state.

“The findings indicate that Bioquell hydrogen peroxide vapor disinfection should be implemented in high-risk environments to maximize patient safety,” said James Salkeld, head of healthcare at Bioquell. “Before this research, hospitals had legitimately asked whether they could afford the 90 minutes it takes to perform a Bioquell cycle. With the study showing acquisition being reduced by over 50% in patients admitted to decontaminated rooms, this begs a new question: can they afford not to?”

Over 1,300 rooms were decontaminated using HPV during the course of the study, with no health and safety problems reported. The implementation of Bioquell’s advanced technology was also reported to be well accepted by unit staff. Bioquell, Inc. provided the robotic hydrogen peroxide vapor generators and supplies for the study, as part of the company’s commitment to support infection control research.  

http://www.bioquell.com/news/johns-hopkins-study-shows-HPV-technology-reducuces-patient-risk/

Privacy Relative to Tracking Apps and Data Mining Legislation Will Fail If There is No Regulation Path Created–License and Excise Tax Data Miners & Sellers Otherwise It’s “Laws With No Balls”

I keep reading all these items on data mining and privacy and what is missing is an avenue for regulation and something that gives law enforcement a leg to stand on.  Of course is primary due to digital illiterate lawmakers that don’t use models and a little bit of predictive modeling to see how it would all play out.  Gee is it so sad that Congress resists or brushes off looking at all sides.  I said that a while back that both sides would be much better off and they might get along better to use a tool like IBM Watson for their research and this is one reason we are all screwed as they don’t have the full understanding of what type of laws and regulations are needed.  Every time I read one of these articles on privacy legislation I just shake my head as what they propose has no teeth at all.  They just dance out it looking for some band aid legislation. 

Heck if they used some good research technology and everyone starts with the same numbers and same information, they might just get along better and be able to move past abortions.  I think if they could produce something that will be realistic and helpful many just might turn loose of that security blanket that we all laugh at.  In the meantime on Wall Street we can just wait around for companies like Citibank to game the weak and nonrealistic laws they come up with as they can’t model.  What in the world is wrong with a group of people we elect with using “big data” capabilities to make better laws?  They just leave themselves and the rest of us open to be “gamed”. 

IBM Watson Going to Work At Citigroup on Wall Street–Congress Didn’t See Big Data As A Tool (Hadoop Framework) When They Had Their Chance…For Consumers The Attack of the Killer Algorithms–Chapter 22

This is why I started this series called the Attack of the Killer Algorithms back in October of 2011 to help educate those who don’t understand jack.  I’m up over 50 chapters now that give every day life examples on how we get “gamed” and suckered in and out.  It all started with the Occupy Movement and they themselves didn’t know exactly what was the cause but they knew things were not working and the money was vanishing into thin air. 

Attack of the Killer Algorithms–Digest & Links for All Chapters–See How the Math and Crafty Formulas Today Running on Servers 24/7 Make Life Impacting Decisions About You

Now let’s go to step 2 of this process and collect some tax money as the banks, companies, social entities are making BILLIONS mining and selling data.  We keep hearing that companies are sitting on record amounts of cash, do you know why now?  There’s very little risk and cost to some IT administration infrastructure to set this up and we have “law with no balls” that do nothing to protect consumers.  As long as someone can make a buck selling data, those companies that make tangible products are at a loss as we are unbalanced.  Even some of those companies don’t expand and hire people and create factories as it is so easy to mine and sell data.

Enter the second stage of this to where the data is queried and sold as valuable analytics.  Wake up, it all does not have value but they will convince you that it does if they can make a buck.  Check out what FICO does with their medication adherence program…all there to make a buck as your credit report has nothing to do with medication adherence. 

FICO Analytics Press Release Marketing Credit Scoring Algorithms to Predict Medication Adherence–Update (Opinion)

Does FICO care if you take your medications, of course not as they want to sell the insurance and pharma business some crappy old analytics they save have value to identify the “evil twin” consumers and they will milk it to the end as bogus as it is and there’s a bunch more just like them out there.  Do they care about privacy, heck no. 

           Answer…license, tax and disclosure…

Start Licensing and Taxing the Data Sellers of the Internet Making Billions of Profit Dollars Mining “Free Taxpayer Data”–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 17 - “Occupy Algorithms”– Help Stop Inequality in the US

Why Is Almost Everyone In Healthcare Marketing Their “Ass” Off

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” Just Like “The Greatest Healthcare System Ever Sold”- Same Paradigms-Colbert Report (Video)

 

So coming back around this law needs to allow for law enforcement to have some teeth and compliance efforts as we have none now and all the current efforts are futile.  Laws with no balls.  Here’s a lady who is much smarter than me but thinks just like I do and we both do math and programming.  Listen to what she has today about the financial markets and this will help convince you even further that “privacy” is on nobody’s minds but the consumers, who don’t get it. 

This is a PBS video from Frontline.  She was a Quant at a Hedge Fund and her area to work in was predictive behaviors and futures.  She said the attitudes are we are going to take advantage because we can…listen to the video.  “If we can take advantage of pension funds, we will” she says as the attitude of the Hedge Funds.  Some of this modeling and ethics takes place with health insurance too, remember they are traded on the markets.  She was hired to find risk and nobody even used her studies and they went on with bad risks anyway. 

Watch The FRONTLINE Interview: Cathy O'Neil on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

So again privacy goes hand in hand with the financial markets as all the data mining and selling means money for big companies and banks.  The algorithms move the money.  This is why privacy without laws with balls will go nowhere.  Franken’s bill will not do enough.  Walgreens made short of $800 million selling data only in 2010.  We can kill two birds with one stone here and collect a whale of tax revenue.  It will help the FDA and the NIH and plenty of other areas and help redistribute the money again. 

One More Good Reason to Tax the Data Sellers– Create Additional Funding for the NIH and FDA From Sources That Otherwise Are Too Greedy to Share & Contribute

Congress To Investigate the Data Sellers - Need To Create a Law to Tax Them As The Algorithms Used For This Business Generate Billions of Dollars, Partly Why Corporate Profits Are So High - Remove the Medical Device Tax as They Produce Needed Jobs/Tangibles

Need more proof, read about this company and their privacy efforts..none and you as a consumer can’t see what they have on you as they are gaming the system with what type of company they are.

E-Scoring Credit Algorithms Invisible To Consumers Used to Market and Evaluate, Does Not Fall Under Federal Law And Such Are Used by Insurance Companies - How Will This Work With Exchanges –Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 42

So there’s a lot of Algo duping going on out there and these privacy laws need to work with adding on areas to regulate and enforce, otherwise we are dead in the water.  You can read more about Algo Duping, and many University professors that understand this have told me this is right on.  So again without bringing a law model in that brings in all aspects of “privacy” the laws will have no teeth, sadly, and will be a waste of time and that’s a shame.  Congress needs to model and use technology to find more of the unintended circumstances that they can before making a law.  At what I read today and the way they are going about it without getting some technical advice, we are screwed again as business will game and profit on every bit they can.  BD   

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THERE are three things that matter in consumer data collection: location, location, location.

E-ZPasses clock the routes we drive. Metro passes register the subway stations we enter. A.T.M.’s record where and when we get cash. Not to mention the credit and debit card transactions that map our trajectories in comprehensive detail — the stores, restaurants and gas stations we frequent; the hotels and health clubs we patronize.

But now legislators, regulators, advocacy groups and marketers are squaring off over newer technology: smartphones and mobile apps that can continuously record and share people’s precise movements. At issue is whether consumers are unwittingly acquiescing to pervasive tracking just for the sake of having mobile amenities like calendar, game or weather apps.

Mr. Franken’s bill may seem intended simply to protect consumer privacy. But the underlying issue is the future of consumer data property rights — the question of who actually owns the information generated by a person who uses a digital device and whether using that property without explicit authorization constitutes trespassing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/technology/legislation-would-regulate-tracking-of-cellphone-users.html

Technorati Tags: Privacy,gaming,Wall Street,devices,Congress,Risk,technology

Aspire-Assist A New Device To Control Weight–Pump and Dump After Eating With a Portable Kit You Take With You Hoping for FDA Approval, Has European CE

When I first read this I thought, yuk but when you get further into it, its maybe not that bad.  It was designed  by gastroenterologists and has gone through clinical trials and they are hoping for an FDA approval.  Right now you can diet, have your mouth wired shut or opt for bariatric surgery to have your stomach shrunk or have a band put in place.  The Aspire-Assist received the European CE Mark recently. It is less expensive than having surgery and the tube can be placed on an out patient basis.  It can be removed at any time. When you watch the video you clean out anything in your stomach and you have to be near the toilet.  It attaches right to the tube that is placed during the procedure in your stomach.  What if one had alcohol?  I guess that would dump too if it were still there.  Some foods could have issues if they are not chewed enough to I would guess. 



You fill it with water so that is what does the flushing.  When yo uwatch the video, down the the toilet it goes.  I would image that this goes along with changing eating habits as well.  For short term it looks ok but how many years does one want the tube and pumping and dumping.  I would say just doing the procedure itself once the novelty wears off is a good incentive right there to think about one’s eating habits.  It looks like it sure beats throwing up with putting your fingers down your throat though:)  BD 

The AspireAssist gives patients control over their weight loss by a method known as Aspiration Therapy. With Aspiration Therapy, patients “aspirate” (drain) a portion of their stomach contents after each meal through an endoscopically-implanted tube, reducing the number of calories absorbed by the body. The tube is implanted in the stomach, and leads to a small, low-profile port at the surface of the skin. Aspiration performed about twenty minutes after a meal will remove about a third of the calories consumed. The AspireAssist is used in conjunction with a lifestyle modification program, and requires careful and comprehensive medical monitoring.

The AspireAssist Aspiration Therapy System received CE mark approval in December 2011 to market in the European Union, and is now commercially available in selected regions in Europe and beyond.

After the skin has healed around the tube (about 10 days), the physician will attach a Skin-Port to the end of the A-Tube outside the body. This takes about 5 minutes and can be done in the doctor’s office. The Skin-Port is discreet, about the size of a poker chip, and sits relatively flush against the skin. Once the Skin-Port is installed, the patient can begin aspirating and losing weight immediately.

http://www.aspirebariatrics.com/overview.html