The Importance of Biomedical Engineering and IT working together in Healthcare

There is a penalty for IT ignorance in healthcare. The management problem with IT within healthcare is an ongoing issue that has cost healthcare millions of dollars. Healthcare executives rely on vendor expertise instead of investing or seeking seasoned in house IT experts who understand the interworking’s of healthcare. The ignorance of the intricacies of biomedical technology and healthcare IT cost healthcare millions of dollars. The importance of understanding how medical equipment integrates with the hospital’s IT network is very important. Biomedical Engineering does not understand the intricacies of IT and IT does not understand the functionality medical equipment. A person that understands medical equipment and IT can prove to be very valuable to a healthcare system. Another problem is the troubleshooting and repair of IT based medical equipment. With some medical equipment to startup and configure relies on it being placed on the IT network, someone who understands what is needed is invaluable because of the necessary components and how to work with the proper IT personnel. Another area of importance is in the troubleshooting and repair. Vendors do not support or are not interested in the configurations of another vendor’s equipment. In hospitals, there is a smorgasbord of equipment that in some cases rely on communicating with another vendor’s equipment, in this case someone that understands integration is very important. This person would minimize the finger pointing. The company Interactive Healthcare Designs (IHD) provides this service with over 20yrs in healthcare (in house), the experts are poised to consult in Biomedical / IT networks, project management and other services. The founder Dr. Jeffrey Smoot has over 15 yrs. in Biomedical Technology and over 10 yrs. in Picture Archiving (PACS) and specialized in Cardio-Vascular Information Systems (CVIS), he has experience with the major vendors in Radiology, ICU monitoring and surgical networks. Dr. Smoot is also a professor in Healthcare Informatics. To hire consulting for bridging the gap between Biomedical/ IT and other healthcare services contact us:

http://interactivehealthcaredesigns.com

info@interactivehealthcaredesigns.com  

Medical Errors in Healthcare

In the June, issue Fierce Healthcare had an article that talked about the rise of hospital medical errors in state was Massachusetts. The Boston Globe reported that errors were on the rise however, the Department of Public Health states, that is good. The report showed that 821 Serious Reportable Events (SRE) in 2014, an increase of 9 from 2013. Massachusetts officials cautioned that the increase does not indicates that hospital are less safe but say that it is an indication of more accurate data. Error reporting increase when a new error reporting data system was implemented in 2013. When the National Quality Forum standards was updated in 2012 errors jumped 70 percent between 2012 to 2013.  These new standards reported 290 serious injuries or deaths from a fall in 2014, a slight increase from 2012. The number of wrong site surgeries decreased, from 36 to 24, wrong sight surgeries and foreign objects left behind remained relatively the same.

Mayo Clinic researchers identified Major surgical errors used human factors analysis to identify  69 never events, including surgery on the wrong person, the wrong site or wrong side of the body, among the 1.5 million invasive procedures performed over 5 years, they found 628 human factors contributed to the errors overall, roughly four to nine per event. Nearly two-thirds of the mayo never events occurred during relatively minor procedures such as anesthetic blocks, line placements, interventional radiology procedures, endoscopy and other skin and soft tissue procedures. Even though there were multiple missteps that occurred there were four major identifiers  for the potential causes, such as stress, mental fatigue, miscommunications, unsafe actions this is where clinicians convince themselves they are seeing what they want to see, inadequate supervision and organizational influences.

Steps to prevent never event errors Mayo clinic follows Joint Commission’s protocol such as briefings and huddles before surgery, surgeons pausing before making the first incision. Surgical teams at Mayo have also implemented World Health Organization’s recommended safety checklist.

This problem is existing all throughout healthcare this is just information on one hospital study. The opportunities for error reporting software is limited and the ability to measure different parameters of hospital medical errors is at best difficult.

Big Data in Nepal

Big Data in Nepal

When the words Big Data are used some think of the customer privacy being jeopardized or the issue   of a person’s privacy eroding. The opportunity for intricate applications in the art of Big Data can be demonstrated in the time of disaster when crisis emergency manager are overwhelmed.  During this time, it is imperative that information is communicated to first responders. In the time of crisis not only is information necessary but the addition of big data in the form of sensors, GPS and social media along with GIS mapping for terrain visualization is necessary. A report in the Government Technology magazine mentioned that one of the first times big data was implemented was in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. FEMA used a different approach from previous disasters by changing its internal response protocol, loosening relationships with non-profit do-gooders that provided big data analysis like Splunk4Good and Geeks without Bounds. Overall the project went well however there were challenges, one was the fact that it is possible to accurately predict the volume of big data that would be produced by a disaster. One important things to keep in mind is that although social media was used in past disasters the implementation and uses of components like road sensors, security cameras, weather detectors etc. is important and has been very effective in the events of natural disasters. The implementation of Sunami warning and detection devices has provided important and the effective big data.

We must remember when it comes to big data regulations there are factors that should be considered that are driven by humanitarian reasons first, the importance of caution, how we regulate in the name of personal and public privacy, the motives for sharing should not be to gain a competitive advantage but for compassion to help provide relief from disasters.

If there is anytime, when Big Data should be tested is when natural catastrophes and catastphoic events happen. The ability to measure devastation is crucial to saving lives. Big Data should be tested unfortunately events that are acts of nature will truly measure the effectiveness of it application.

http://Fiercebigdata.com/Big data in crisis management: Nepal earthquake

UV Robots for Sterilization

Medical News Technology published an article "UV light robot to clean hospital rooms could help stop spread of super-bugs". In this article Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine conducted a study on the effectiveness  of a germ-zapping robot to clean hospital rooms, which could possibly hold the key for preventing the spread of "super-bugs"- in turn, saving countless dollars and most importantly lives. It is imperative to keep hospital rooms clean to prevent the spread of infections. The existence of nosocomial infections can be difficult to treat and sometimes fatal. Dr. Chetan Jinadatha, M.D., M.P.H. who conducted the study states that "A typical 100-bed hospital sees about 10-20 hospital -acquired infections (HAI) a year, The goal is to get zero infections." Another major factor for reduction is financial, in 2017 the federal government will dramatically reduce Medicare payments to hospitals that exceed incidences of HAI's. The current situations of sanitizing relies heavily on housekeeping staff which has a high turn over rate. This research was focused on the effectiveness of a pulsed xenon ultraviolet (UV) and its effectiveness at eliminating HAI's. This is one of the first studies since the system was introduced in 2011. This system is based on xenon gas and high voltage electricity that releases UV light that binds to DNA of organisms and kills them.

Last year, Dr. Jinadatha conducted a study that compared manual cleaning vs manual cleaning & UV light that kills the organism by binding to the DNA, it was 99 percent effective aganist bacteria that causes MRSA. The study was published  earlier this year in the American journal of Infection Control which looked at the effectiveness of UV light disinfection and proved that 12 minutes in the UV light system cut the amount of bacteria in the room by 70 percent, this is about the same as the manual disinfection's. Jinadatha, also stated that he never recommends UV light alone but with manual cleaning. The system is currently used by some VA hospitals and and about 200 private hospital and he predicts this will eventually become standard equipment.

I personally feel that there is no replacement to the human factor of any environmental service that is performed in a healthcare facility. However, I agree that with the combination of humans and technology, the existence of infections can be minimized or possibly eliminate. More research needs to be performed to identify UV sensitive bacteria and how the light spectrum can be used.

Google and Disease Targeting

I was reading the Telegraph newspaper from the UK about some of the technologies that Google is creating in the war on cancer. They recently filed for a patent in what they call "Nano-particle Phoresis", which is a wearable device that can automatically target modify or destroy blood cells that have adverse health effects. The targeted blood could include enzymes, hormones, proteins, cells or other molecules that when present in the blood may affect a medical condition or the health of the person wearing the device. The wearable device can me modified to target cells and destroy them through transmitting energy into the blood vessels. The various energies could be radio frequency pulse, time-varying magnetic field, acoustic pulse, infrared or visible light signal. The energy creates a physical or chemical change in the targeted cells with the intent of reducing or possible eliminating  adverse side effects. A good example is Parkinson's disease, it creates certain proteins. This wearable device could be used to target these proteins thus slowing the development of the disease. According to the patent information filed by Google this could also be used to target the growth of some cancer cells.

This is not the first indication that Google is investing in the fight on cancer. In October 2014, it was in the process of developing a pill that could detect cancer and other diseases. This pill which is comprised of iron-oxide nano-particles that enter the bloodstream and can identify cancer tumor cells which give off biochemical signals when they (iron) comes in contact with the cells. It in essence paints the infected cells which travel around the body. The wearable device that is worn on the wrist creates a magnetic field and draws the the particles to be detected and counted.Google states that this technology is in the near future.

In my opinion this research of nanotechnology is constantly evolving and targeted therapy is the future. The development of nano-diagnosis to internally diagnose patients is a definite possibility. Only the imagination can limit the developments.

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Healthcare and Climate Change

In the Fierce Healthcare April 9 issue, there was an article where Obama addressed the issue addressing the impact of climate change on healthcare. This was a meeting that was held at Howard University. The main issue addressed was the rising climate changes and its effects on the poor, elderly, sick and children. The "Rising temperatures can lead to more smog, longer allergy seasons and an increased incidence of extreme -weather-related injuries." It is a good possibilities that all families will be affected. Obama charged healthcare professionals with developing new measures to prepare for this. The Department of Health and Human services and the CDC have teamed up to develop a "Health Care Facilities Toolkit" which is comprised of fact sheets and checklist and case studies that illustrates best practices. These issues come on the heels of guidelines that came from the White House in December. The main purpose is to create an infrastructure that would be resilient to the threat to climate change.  In my opinion the threat of not only climate change but the overall problem of addressing Healthcare practices in general and Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). The roaming through the hospital as an employee to different departments will always pose a threat to internal infections and the possible spread of HAI's to patients that have compromised immune systems. There are still hidden threats that are not addressed one is  Medical Equipment Acquired Infections (MEAI) are growing. Infectious control departments for the most part do not address this or have data on it.

Interactive Healthcare

The rise of interactive healthcare is growing. Some experts estimate that by 2020 this new world of virtual, augmented reality and haptic devices will increase not only in use, but in revenue. Some estimates give the upwards of $20 billion. The interesting thing is that no matter how advanced technology in healthcare becomes there is going to be a learning curve for end users. Until a new generation of tech savvy medical staff is developed more intensive training will be needed. Companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Dell are developing new ways of making healthcare more interactive some areas from virtual training using CPR to Robotic surgery these are just to name a few. So get ready healthcare, new advancements are at hand.

IHD

The development of Human Computer Interaction in Healthcare is on the rise. The purpose of Interactive Healthcare Designs is to develop technology for reducing nosocomial infections in healthcare. The cost of a patient that acquires an HAI cost a hospital an average of $20K, the CDC estimates that over 2 million patients are infected a year, insurance providers are refusing to reimburse hospitals so, hospitals have to eat the cost. This area is a billion dollar market and is going to be capitalized on.