Medical centers are rushing to add the latest weapons against cancer--nuclear particle accelerators, formerly used only for exotic physics research. Experts say the push reflects the best and worst of the nation's market-based healthcare system. Critics say these medical centers are pursing the latest, most expensive treatments without much evidence of improved health, even as soaring costs add to the nation's economic burden. Nuclear particle accelerators are said to be more precise than the X-rays that are typically used for radiation therapy, with fewer side effects and potentially a higher cure rate.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has named members of two work groups that will seek consensus on the definitions and use of five common health IT terms. The Records Work Group will cover the terms electronic health record, electronic medical record and personal health record. The Networks Work Group will focus on the terms Regional Health Information Organization and Health Information Exchange.
InnerWireless, a provider of in-building wireless technology, announced that it will deploy its PanGo location management platform in the University of Michigan Health System's medical campus. This platform will enable the pharmacy department to track and monitor hundreds of boxes containing emergency drug supplies throughout its 913-bed medical campus. Pharmacy will become the first department in the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based University of Michigan Health System to use a real-time location system by incorporating PanGo into the health system's existing Cisco infrastructure.
The Canadian House of Commons has passed emergency legislation to reopen the Ontario nuclear reactor that produces the majority of the world's supply of medical isotopes. The site was shut down for safety maintenance, and the bill required all party support to override the advice of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and restart the 50-year-old reactor.
According to a study only 20 RHIOs in the United States are fully functional and a dozen are self-sustaining. The study questions many of the prevailing assumptions about how a nationwide health information network will emerge.
One of the objections to the implementation of speech recognition software in a radiology practice is that it generates more errors than traditional transcription methods, but new research disputes this claim. According to a scientific presentation at the 93rd scientific assembly and annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, transcribed reports show higher error rates than automated speech recognition applications.