Tuesday 8 February 2011

CTA and MRA equally accurate for coronary imaging

Newer MRI and CT-angiography proved nearly equal in identifying significant stenosis, and were equally accurate in predicting the need for revascularization in patients with known coronary artery disease (CAD), in the first direct comparison of MRA and CTA, say German researchers.

32-channel MRI offers equal accuracy in diagnosing stenosis with CTA, and is less invasive than conventional angiography.
In their study, the researchers led by Dr. Ashraf Hamdan, of the German Heart Institute, compared the diagnostic accuracy of 32-channel, 3.0-T MRI and 64-slice CT scan before conventional x-ray angiography. Their report appeared in the January, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.

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CTA and MRA equally accurate for coronary imaging

Monday 7 February 2011

Tunstall Adds Just Checking To Its Products

Tunstall, a major company providing healthcare IT solutions, mentioned that it has added to its portfolio of market leading telehealthcare solutions the Just Checking product, which offers health and social care professionals with a flexible and cost-effective methods of social care evaluation.

Just Checking is considered a web-based activity monitoring system which uses movement sensors in order to generate a 24 hour chart of activity of an individual living alone in their own homes. Currently, over than half of UK councils with social services responsibilities use Just Checking for evaluation and planning care for individuals leaving hospitals and for those with dementia.

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Tunstall Adds Just Checking To Its Products

Wednesday 26 January 2011

EHR did not Significantly Improve Healthcare Quality in the US, Study

According to a new study, Electronic Health Records (EHR) did not significantly improve healthcare quality in the United States. The study was carried out by researchers from the Stanford University, School of Medicine, and its results appeared online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Aiming to assess the relationship of EHRs and clinical decision support (CDS) to the provision of guideline-concordant care, the research team analyzed nationwide survey data from more than 250,000 healthcare visits between 2005 and 2007.

Results showed that, EHRs were used in 30% of an estimated 1.1 billion annual US patient visits, 57% of which witnessed clinical decision support (17% of all visits). EHRs are much less likely used in solo practices than in multiphysician settings. Among the EHR visits, only 1 of 20 quality indicators showed significantly better performance in visits with CDS compared with EHR visits without CDS. Findings indicated no consistent association between EHRs and CDS and better quality.

Study co-author and medical student at Johns Hopkins, Max Romano, explained "Most studies before ours focused on how single EHR systems work in a few premier academic medical centers, and some of those studies have found significant benefits," adding "Our study takes a different approach: We looked at all non-federal outpatient settings in the United States, from solo private practices to community health centers, to see whether EHRs were having any noticeable impacts in the real world, and we found no significant differences in care quality,"

EHR did not Significantly Improve Healthcare Quality in the US, Study

Akron Children's Hospital Receives Award For Its Promoted Scheduling MRI Project

Akron Children's Hospital, Akron, OH, has recently received an honorary mention award for its project that promoted the effectiveness in scheduling MRI scans at the facility.

Akron Hospital was awarded by the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC), in a ceremony that took place during the Lean Six Sigma & Process Improvement Summit that was held on the 19th of January in Orlando.

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Akron Children's Hospital Receives Award For Its Promoted Scheduling MRI Project

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Niteo Partners Offers SmartPredict Healthcare

Niteo Partners, a NEC company, presented its SmartPredict Healthcare which is the latest iteration of Niteo's award-winning SmartPredict solutions. It brings cutting edge performance dashboards, data integration and predictive analytics to the healthcare industry to develop patient satisfaction, track meaningful use compliance metrics, and develop operational outcomes.

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Niteo Partners Offers SmartPredict Healthcare

Humber River Regional Hospital Implements New MRI System

The Church Street Site of Humber River Regional Hospital, Weston, Ontario, has recently improved its diagnostic imaging services following the implementation of a new MRI system in the facility.

The new MRI unit is the second for Humber River Regional Hospital. It is going to permit the hospital to perform more than 3000 scans annually. The new system was added to the facility aiming to reduce waiting time for patients who are in need on an MRI scan.

Moreover, River Regional Hospital is going to get an immediate one-time investment of $235,600 to aid the facility in performing about 1400 other MRI scans using the currently used unit. The implementation of the new MRI system represents a part of the Open Ontario Plan, carried out by the government, to improve the access to healthcare for patients.

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Humber River Regional Hospital Implements New MRI System

Monday 24 January 2011

CT Scans Help In Abdominal Pain Diagnosis In Emergency Departments, Study

According to a recent study, using Computed Tomography (CT) scans can significantly aid doctors in diagnosing the causes of abdominal pain in emergency departments more accurately and rapidly. The study took place at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and its findings are highlighted in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Researchers mentioned that abdominal CT scans offered details that resulted in changing the plan of treatment of nearly 50% of the participating patients in the study, and the scans also helped in reducing the number of hospital admissions. Scott Gazelle, MD, MPH, PhD, an MGH radiologist and director of the Institute for Technology Assessment, senior author of the study, explained "Our report addresses an important question with substantial policy relevance – what is the value of CT scanning in the emergency department setting? We specifically looked at how the use of CT for patients with abdominal pain affects physicians' thinking about their patients' diagnosis, their confidence in the diagnosis and the treatment plan; and we found that it significantly affected all three."

Dr. Gazelle mentioned that studies have been taking place on medical imaging in order to design new methods for reducing healthcare costs. He said "We've strongly believed that the use of CT in the emergency department can improve efficiency in the workup for many conditions, but we haven't had the evidence we would like to back up that assertion. We chose abdominal pain for our study because it's a common presenting symptom that doesn't have the clearly defined diagnostic guidelines available for other common symptoms that can lead to CT, like headache."

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CT Scans Help In Abdominal Pain Diagnosis In Emergency Departments, Study

A New XFELs Technology To Measure The Structure Of Membrane Proteins

new method has been created by the Australian researchers in order to measure the structure of membrane proteins despite being damaged when using X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), that discovery will aid in tracking the improvement of targeted drugs using new XFELs technology.

Today, about 70% of drugs in the market rely on the activity of membrane proteins, which are complex molecules that form the membranes of the cells in our body. The main problem for the design of new pharmaceuticals, often defined as “membrane protein problem,” is because they do not form the crystals necessary to enable further investigation of the structure to design better drugs.

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A New XFELs Technology To Measure The Structure Of Membrane Proteins

Sunday 23 January 2011

MRI Services will be Improved at Brampton Civic Hospital

Queen’s Park announced that access to important MRI diagnostic scans will be improved at Brampton Civic Hospital due to a one-time cash investment declared by the government Friday (Jan. 21).

“This investment in our community will make it easier for people who need an MRI scan to get tested and treated more quickly, thereby providing families with the peace of mind knowing the care they need is close to home,” said Brampton-Springdale MPP Linda Jeffrey of the $235,000 cash injection.

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MRI Services will be Improved at Brampton Civic Hospital

South Lincoln Medical Center to Offer Digital Mammography

Thanks to the Helmsley Charitable Trust, South Lincoln Medical Center (SLMC), Kemmerer, WY, is on the way to have digital mammography service provided through its facility. SLMC lately received a fund from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

The fund will be used to promote SLMC’s mammography service. A new state-of-art digital mammography unit will be acquired, in addition to upgrading radiology workstations, mammography room and the changing area of patients. Robert Berlin, M.D., Staff Radiologist, SLMC, said "This acquisition is a major enhancement to the services that we offer our patients. Although the new equipment will have a similar appearance to the patient, the quality of the examinations will be superior, with increased sensitivity and decreased radiation dose."

Digital mammography generates significantly clearer images of the breast tissue. The images can be magnified or enhanced, which results in promoting the abilities to identify breast abnormalities, especially breast cancer, much earlier, where the condition can be treated more effectively.

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South Lincoln Medical Center to Offer Digital Mammography