health

Students predict the future of health records

It's hard to predict just how the effort to move medical records from paper to digital will shape up.

That said, a collection of business students recently gave it their best shot. As part of an annual "war game" exercise, students from such schools as Penn's Wharton School of Business took on the roles of key industry players in an effort to imagine how the battle to digitize America's health records will play out.

Among their predictions: entrenched interests will slow change, industry players will have to consolidate, and the financial pressure will need to … Read more

Watch what you eat

Deep fryer's can be a lot of fun, but I've always held off picking one up. Aside from the obvious health implications of owning a device that turns anything and everything into a cardiologist's nightmare, the fact is, most deep fryers are just plain ugly. Boxy and almost always draped in stainless steel, deep fryers for home use give more than one reason to (by)pass on owning one. If deep-fried goodness I need, there are plenty of restaurants that are willing to serve it to me.

The Kalorik Deep Fat Fryer with Removable Bowl might change … Read more

Tech giants line up for e-health dollars

With billions in stimulus dollars available to help doctors and hospitals digitize their health records, it stands to reason that tech companies want to make spending that money as easy as possible.

Several of the players--Allscripts, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, and Nuance Communications--have teamed up in an alliance aimed at educating doctors on the many tools available to help set up electronic health records.

The EHR Stimulus Alliance is pulling out all the stops, with a road tour, Webcasts, telephone hotline, and other tools all aimed at demystifying the technology and showing case studies of where it has … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 974: Black holes are made of people

Well, actually, people are made of black holes. But I couldn't do a Soylent Green reference if I wrote that. We also talk about Natali's Lady Things and the fact that we all wear makeup. Oh, and Sony is broke. And Jammie Thomas is going back to court. So it's not all good news.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 974

Sony Records First Full-Year Loss In 14 Years http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-earnings-sony-records-first-full-year-loss-in-14-years/

eBay wins L’Oreal suit http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebay-wins-french-court-ruling-in-loreal-case

Not-so-shocking: Jammie Thomas, RIAA unable to settle http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/not-so-shocking-jammie-thomas-riaa-unable-to-settle.ars… Read more

The 404 342: Where doctor says I need a 'backiotomy'

Dr. Todd Sinett is in today to talk about his revolutionary idea about chronic back pain and his book "The Truth About Back Pain: A Revolutionary, Individualized Approach to Diagnosing and Healing Back Pain." Meanwhile, Justin is still out with the swine flu, but Dr. Sinett more than fills the gap left by Justin's absence with his first appearance on The 404. We promise he'll be back again soon.

There are times when we get a call from a PR rep about a possible guest and we get skeptical. After all, The 404 is a show ostensibly about technology and culture. But then we get gems like Dr. Michael Breus, the Sleep Doctor, and now Dr. Todd Sinett, the Back Doctor.

According to the Back Doctor, there are three primary causes of back pain, and for the most part, we only treat the first, which is physical and structural. He says that, actually, digestive and mental health are incredibly important to the health of your back, and high stress plays a key role in back pain.

On the show, he demonstrates some health exercises to strengthen your back. Additionally, he teaches us how to sit properly at work and eat properly at home. He doesn't believe that people "don't have time" to eat well. Apparently, salads and oatmeal every single day of your life isn't healthy for you. He even says that food from McDonald's occasionally is OK, as long as you eat a balanced diet every day.

Check out today's show and call us out if we're talking crap about your health. Leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). It's all toll free. Finally, we love your e-mails to the show: the404 [at] cnet [com].

EPISODE 342 Download today's podcast Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Google wants to know if you're sick

Correction at 4:13 p.m. PDT Thursday: Roni Zeiger's last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post.

Google is attempting to find out how much of a role Internet searches play in the self-diagnosis process.

The company plans later Wednesday to start rolling out a subtle question at the bottom of pages with search results for a few common ailments, such as "Did you search because you or someone you know may have an ear infection?" That question will only appear for a very small number of users who search for terms such … Read more

Wireless asthma inhaler links patient, doctor

There's now an alternative to the GPS-enabled inhaler for keeping patients connected with health care providers.

Cambridge Consultants on Wednesday brought its "connected patient" concept to life with a low-cost wireless platform that lets medical devices deliver readings to a central monitor located at home, or to an online health record such as Google Health or Microsoft Health Vault.

The idea behind the technology is that patients and their health care support professionals should be connected wirelessly, via the treatment devices. First up: the demo version of Vena-enabled inhalers.

The platform, called Vena, employs two emerging wireless standards, including the Infrared-based IEEE11073 and the Bluetooth Medical Device Profile. Vena embeds the two into a single chip as the combination of them ensures compatibility of data exchanged between different types of devices and the security in the transmitting of medical data.

The demo inhalers connect to an online personal health care application via a smartphone or a computer.… Read more

Feds' red tape left medical devices infected with computer virus

The Conficker Internet virus has infected important computerized medical devices, but governmental red tape interfered with their repair, an organizer of an antivirus working group told Congress on Friday.

Rodney Joffe, one of the founders of an unofficial organization known as the Conficker Working Group, said that government regulations prevented hospital staff from carrying out the repairs.

Joffe, who also is the senior vice president for the telecom clearinghouse Neustar, told a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that over the last three weeks, he and another Conficker researcher identified at least 300 critical medical devices from a … Read more

Companies plan for possible swine flu pandemic

Following the outbreaks of SARS and Avian Flu earlier this decade, Sprint Nextel has taken the threat of a global flu pandemic very seriously. And in 2005, the company created a special group within its Emergency Incident Management team to plan what to do in such an emergency.

Late last week, when the World Health Organization started alerting the international community to the threat of the swine influenza that originated in Mexico, Sprint's four years of planning came into action and Sprint has been working through its checklist of actions. On Friday, it started posting information and updates on … Read more

Get to know yourself with Human Atlas for iPhone

The most I've paid for an iPhone app is $5.99. This is why I was so excited to get a a promotional code for the $19.99 Human Atlas and install the software on my iPhone 3G right away. The app also works on the iPod Touch.

Human Atlas offers 3D images and videos of 150 common medical treatments and conditions. After a few days of use, I think this is a great application for those who want to learn about their body and conditions ranging from allergies, muscle pain, high blood pressure, stroke, and tendon injuries to diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and more.

Basically, you will appreciate anything you can learn from this app.

What you won't appreciate, however, is its lacks of features. The Human Atlas app has two parts: 3D image and video. The images don't allow for rotating the body, you're stuck with the front of the object. This makes the images seems less "3D" than they could be. Also, you can't display the images vertically. While it's OK to watch the video with the phone put in the horizontal position, the images could benefit a lot more from the vertical display as you won't have to scroll as much.… Read more