Tweets from Boston meeting on health, the Internet and mobile communication

Check out #chs11 f for tweet from the Connected Health Symposium in Boston. Each year, Partners sponsors this meeting to look at how the Internet and mobile communication are changing the health care system.  Here's a link to the Tweetstream and a few samples below from a session on social networking and health. “ RT …

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Get healthier with web games

Beyond exergaming. The Institute of Medicine anbd HHS will host a public forum today: The Community Health Data Forum: Harnessing the Power of Information to Improve Health in Washington, DC. The morning session will debut a number of recently developed applications that use community health data before an audience of highly influential policymakers and all attendees. …

Boston conference on technology and global health.

The World Health Medical Technology Conference, was a “workshop dedicated to exploring the opportunities and challenges of designing, building and funding medical technologies for the developing world.” In other words, trying to find inexpensive tests and treatments that are simple to use and don’t require a lot of infrastructure, like labs and clean water.   …

Support solid, local reporting on medical devices

A plug today.   Mass Device  -- officially called the The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal --  is a web site that reports on the business of medical device industry.  Like pharma, the medical device industry develops products that create jobs and cure people.  Both also make TONS of money off the way the health care system …

Privacy, profiteering and other perils of computerized health records

BHN finally caught up on the ongoing series on health information technology, or HIT, running on The Huffington Post. Some of this ground has been covered elsewhere – privacy, issues with patient access and conflict of interest for former senator and quasi-lobbyist Tom Daschle. Still, take note of the recent report on the digital divide. And when …

UCSF v. Beth Israel on FDA on heart device safety

Docs from BI, working with the Food and Drug Administration, released a study this week suggesting that medical device makers are providing weak evidence to support the efficacy and safety of products, in particular cardiovascular devices like stents and implanted defibrillators. The study was release earlier to counter a similar study in the Journal of …

Academics, industry, health reform and medical devices

The NYTimes business section has an update on academic/industry partnerships and explains new transparency rules in the Senate reform bill. Massachusetts has had a state law on this but it's only been in effect for a few months. A group of doctors who oppose the law held a meeting in Boston this summer. Also, read on and …

Caution or stubbornness? Boston docs shun new heart procedure

Boston-area docs are known for their reluctance to adopt new procedures. The Washington Post reports that holds true for a new approach to angioplasty. Instead of steering the catheter into the coronary arteries through the groin, some docs go through the wrist. Questions about the best method of performing cardiac catheterizations, one of the most …

Masschusetts to set up statewide electronic health information exchange

The idea that computers can cut health care costs seems pretty abstract at times. But, if you think of all the money wasted on claims processing, prescribing errors and questionable care, it makes sense. Computers could get at the cost of administration, medical errors and unnecessary testing and treatment.  Massachusetts is setting up a health …

Week in review and accessible hospitals

Check out my Week in Review and the rest of Mass Device. This business news site covers a key part of the health care industry --   everything from computers to catheters to scanners. The device industry faces many of the same issues as pharma – safety, financing, high prices and the uncertainty of health reform.  …