by medicaltechont | Apr 30, 2016 | Medical Records, Security, Technology
As was summarized in this publication’s introduction to the first article in this two-part series on the ransomware crisis, published on April 18, ransomware has blossomed into a crisis-level phenomenon recently in U.S. healthcare. The first nationally reported mainstream media news story in this drama was that around Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. On Friday, February 12, NBC4News, the local affiliate of the NBC network in Los Angeles, reported in its noon and evening broadcasts, and then online, this story: “Hollywood Hospital ‘Victim of Cyber Attack.’” And since that moment, ransomware attacks have rarely been out of the mainstream media headlines, with revelations of attacks that have brought down electronic health record (EHR) and other clinical and operational information systems at the 10-hospital Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health (first media report March 28), as well as at Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Ky. (first news report March 21), Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego, and Chino (Calif.) Valley Medical Center and Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville, Calif. (news stories on March 31), and Kings Daughters Health in Marion, Ind. (first news report Apr. 1).
Read more at http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/facing-ransomware-crisis-what-healthcare-it-leaders-need-do-right-now
by medicaltechont | Apr 24, 2016 | Technology
The list of cancers being taken down by immunotherapy keeps growing.
NEW ORLEANS – New immunotherapy drugs are showing significant and extended effectiveness against a broadening range of cancers, including rare and intractable tumours often caused by viruses. Researchers say these advances suggest the treatment approach is poised to become a critical part of the nation’s anti-cancer strategy.
Read more at http://news.nationalpost.com/health/the-list-of-cancers-being-taken-down-by-immunotherapy-keeps-growing.
by medicaltechont | Apr 20, 2016 | Technology
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While working on developing sensors to measure stress, Rosalind Picard and a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made a startling discovery. They found that when monitoring skin for electrical changes activated deep in the brain, the signals proved effective at detecting potentially fatal seizures.
The findings open the door to wearable monitoring devices that, among other things, could reduce deaths among people with epilepsy. “Wearables are going to be much bigger than anyone imagined,” says Prof Picard, founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab.
Read more at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f643993e-e620-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39.html#axzz460vLlcnp
by medicaltechont | Apr 2, 2016 | Autism, Technology, World
Harrison Czapalay, 22, has been a driving force behind marking World Autism Awareness Day in Wolfville
Harrison Czapalay is hoping people in Wolfville, N.S., light the sky up blue Saturday night.
Czapalay, 22, has autism and he’s encouraging residents and businesses to put blue lights outside their front doors for one night to mark World Autism Awareness Day.
“I really want to see Wolfville lighten up blue Saturday night. That would be awesome,” he said Thursday.
“All around the world there will be different structures lit up blue on the evening of April 2nd.”
Read more at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/wolfville-lighting-it-up-blue-for-autism-awareness-1.3515795
by medicaltechont | Mar 5, 2016 | private clinics, United States
Governments across Canada have been caught in a fiscal bind over the entire period of neoliberalism. On the one hand, they have pursued austerity and restraint almost without interruption since the 1990s; and, on the other, they remain under pressure to deliver some minimal social security for welfare, healthcare, pensions and so forth. Since the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 this contradiction, a core tension of meeting social needs in capitalist societies, has gotten worse. The combination of a long depression in economic growth and permanent austerity in government budgeting has further cramped government fiscal capacities. This has led to all kinds of efforts, following the new public management organization of the state, to privatize, contract-out, marketize and so on, government functions and services.
Read more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/canadas-struggle-against-the-privatization-of-healthcare/5508667
