Can New Technologies Really Assist Avoid Date Rape?

The horrific crime of date rape is normally perpetrated on young ladies (and males), usually of school age.  In accordance to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), one particular in 6 ladies will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime, with 73% of victims understanding their assailants.  Numerous instances, data rape perpetrators try to tamper with a victim’s drink in order to impair their judgment or to disorient them.

Presently, numerous young folks attempt to use the buddy technique and keep a mindful eye on their drinks when in public settings.  A current ad campaign encourages folks to “speak up” if they see a probably hazardous circumstance.  Other campaigns inspire people to observe out for each other, especially people who may possibly not be capable to defend themselves (i.e., if they are too drunk to understand the gravity of the predicament).  Sadly, nonetheless conscientious you and your friends might be, there is even now a threat.

In an try to deal with this concern, a variety of products are appearing that declare to give some added protection in social circumstances the place drinking is concerned.  But, can these new technologies genuinely assist avoid date rape?

Some of these new items involve unique nail polish or lip gloss that can be utilized to detect spiked drinks.  An ongoing poll on the attractiveness internet site PopSugar finds that 70% of their readers would use a solution like this to support protect themselves against date rape.  In spite of the possible reputation of such items, these technologies do have extreme limitations.  Lip gloss answers could not operate with drinks that incorporate particular fruit juices, oily liqueurs, or tonic water.  Nail polish solutions have the sanitation problem of needing to location ones finger into the drink itself.  As this kind of, neither of these solution categories is generating a enormous effect on the market.

Other merchandise that may well gain a lot more traction consist of an Israeli company’s “swizzle stick” that seems like a straw but lights up if your drink is spiked.  Drink Savvy sells cups that check for drugged drinks, hoping to exchange the infamous red Solo cup of university events.

Drink Secure Technologies markets coasters that detect two of the most widespread date rape medicines, GHB and Ketamine.  We asked Drink Safe’s president, Lance Norris, why Rohypnol (recognized on the street as “roofie”) wasn’t included.  He explained, “Most labs altered the chemical compound of Rohypnol so that it is no longer water soluble.  It’s now bitter and has a blue coloring.  Simply because of this it’s no longer the principal drug utilised.”  He went on to say that, “Statistics display that individuals whose drinks are compromised have a 25% chance of getting sexual assaulted.”

But do these items even have the correct method to the situation?  Critics argue that most date rapes really don’t involve the use of medicines other than alcohol.  Thus, these inventions might not be as useful as they sound, considering that alcohol itself is the primary drug of choice.  A number of individuals  may be protected, but do these merchandise reinforce the concept that ladies need to be continuously protecting themselves from unwelcome sexual advances?  These tests are a small stage forward but ultimately won’t be as effective in the grand scheme of factors if we proceed to let rapists (97% of whom never ever see a day in jail, in accordance to RAINN) to go unpunished.

Raini Baudendistel, Executive Director of the Crime Victims Support Center in Binghamton, NY, gave her thoughts on the date security items at the moment available.  “I believe to generate change, our approach to prevention has to be multifaceted.  These items undermine the actuality that alcohol itself is the most commonly utilised drug in drug-facilitated rapes, but if it meant an further layer of protection for MY daughters, I can not argue its use.  Eventually, we should come at it from several directions to impact real societal adjust.”

Meghan Whalen, Education/Volunteer Coordinator at the Crime Victims Support Center, additional her standpoint.  “I’m not necessarily convinced that this will do as well considerably other than supply false security and function as a Band-Support for the issue.  It could arguably supply awareness and schooling on the subject, which is vital, but two-thirds of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a person the victim understands or trusts.  Considering this fact, it is unlikely they would even think about testing their drink.  I consider it could be valuable against the uncommon stranger rape, but it is not a comprehensive remedy, by any means.”

So although these new technologies might demonstrate constrained promise in rising security, they do not address the leads to of date rape.  As folks and as a society, we’re always tempted to identify a silver bullet or magic pill that will straight and simply fix a issue.  The leads to and chance variables for date rape run too deep for such simplistic answers as “magic” nail polish or lip-gloss.  Technologies itself just isn’t the reply.  The tougher but smarter approach is to educate each men and women about preventing and responding to sexual violence.

Rob Szczerba is the CEO of X Tech Ventures.  Comply with him on Forbes, Twitter (@RJSzczerba), Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Can New Technologies Really Assist Avoid Date Rape?

Why Mobile Well being Technologies Have not Taken Off (Nevertheless)

Tech entrepreneurs see the mobile overall health (mHealth) marketplace as the following wonderful enterprise revolution, but it has nevertheless to obtain critical mass.  mHealth is regarded the sum of technologies-based applications that enable a patient and a physician to clinically interact from distinct locations.  Examples incorporate the exchange of health care details via e-mail, texting, smartphone apps, storing and forwarding photos, and Net-primarily based video.

The mHealth marketplace is becoming re-energized by the development of the smartphone industry, with a lot more than 140 million smartphone consumers in the U.S.  This quantity is expected to rise to more than 200 million in excess of the subsequent five many years.  This growth is getting fueled by 1000′s of apps that are empowering customers in their every day lives.  Customers are enjoying the handheld convenience of depositing checks, steering clear of visitors, playing video games, and staying linked to pals.

But is the U.S. healthcare infrastructure ready to embrace the developing need for non-traditional doctor-patient encounters?  Regrettably, the adoption curve has been slow, with only about ten% of the U.S. population (36 million) possessing ever utilized mHealth technologies, such as telemedicine.  Irrespective of the medium by means of which the experience will take location, there are even now main hurdles for mHealth to implement remedies that are presently prevalent in other service-based mostly industries, this kind of as banking, insurance coverage, and travel.  Despite much more than 20,000 healthcare-connected smartphone apps that are available in the marketplace right now, a 2012 Pew Analysis Center review located that only ten% of smartphone customers have downloaded a healthcare app.  A comparable variety of customers have ever obtained an electronic mail or alert directly associated to their health.

Telemedicine Seek advice from (Photo credit: IntelFreePress)

To obtain some insight into the state of mHealth adoption, we contacted Dr. Darren Sommer, Chief Health-related Officer of the Optimized Care Network, a network of healthcare companies who nearly connect with and treat individuals.  In accordance to Sommer, mHealth apps can be divided into 3 types of encounters: (1) initiated and concluded by the patient, (2) initiated and concluded by the healthcare supplier, and (3) initiated by either, but concluded by the other.

The 1st two represent the potential for either the physician or the patient to utilize technological innovation as a personal resource for their medical needs.  A patient might track his or her diabetes, or a doctor may seem up the dose of a medication.  In the two examples, the patient and the doctor are not dependent upon each other.  The third category, which is defined by the patient or doctor initiating the app use and the other concluding the interaction, is a considerably tougher model.  Some pre-coordination must consider place ahead of the data being collected can be acted on.

A lack of standardization is not surprising, considering the amount of mobile platforms and medical apps providing equivalent functions.  For illustration, says Sommer, “If a patient self-selects the use of a diabetes app without coordinating with their doctor, the doctor may only be in a position to alter a patient’s diabetes routine by reviewing a paper printout brought by the patient to the following in-man or woman pay a visit to.  The worth of collecting that data in true time is now marginalized.”  It would be greater for the two the patient and the doctor to be able to share that information in real time, overview it, and act on it ahead of issues can come up.

The logistical hurdles to mHealth adoption also have monetary ramifications.  If a major care medical professional manages a population of two,500 patients, do they have the employees and/or time to integrate and act on what could be hundreds of day-to-day notifications?  Today’s fragmented, brick-and-mortar healthcare practices had been not developed to modify their workflow like utility grids that foresee and deal with the peaks and troughs of energy consumption.  A utility firm is financially incentivized to deliver power effectively, which saves them income and improves their margins.  In healthcare, nevertheless, there is not a compelling financial case for incentivizing the patient and the doctor to invest their own resources into several, discrete mHealth options.

There are thousands of organizations offering telemedicine technology, but there is no widespread adoption by practitioners.  Sommer asks, “Why would a family members practitioner that sees 25 individuals in the office per day quit seeing 5 of those individuals, in purchase to see 5 remotely?  Even if they could get paid for the e-pay a visit to, which they likely can’t (at least beneath existing reimbursement designs), they would nevertheless drop funds on their investment in the telemedicine engineering.

Numerous independent physician practices do not have the resources to invest in new infrastructure.  Imagine your regional independent barbershop investing 1000′s of dollars into an app that allows its buyers to book appointments online, figure out the schedule of their favorite barber, and get reminders when a defined time period of time expires in between haircuts.  The barbershop could by no means afford to do it unless the investment could be recouped.  This would come in the form of far more patrons receiving haircuts.  However, if the store is operating at greatest capacity, there is minor cause to invest added assets just for the sake of buyer ease.  The case is the very same for healthcare.  If a household physician has a practice that is operating at capacity, there is no economic incentive to invest in new providers to attract extra patients or chance diminishing its already tight margins.

Regardless of all these headwinds, it’s most likely that healthcare buyers will soon commence to act a lot more like consumers of solutions from other industries.  They will demand far more for their healthcare dollar, since more of that healthcare dollar will come from their wallet and not from their health insurance coverage company.  Innovative providers of healthcare will devise new ways to supply large-good quality healthcare at reduced expenses.  These innovations will get rid of the middleman (government agencies and wellness insurance coverage organizations) and restore the primacy of the patient-doctor partnership.  These new clinical companies will be more responsive to the wants of individuals, more marketplace-driven, and much more in line with other services-primarily based industries.  As Dr. Sommer puts it, “Medical practices will compete in the very same way that other organizations do or they will not survive.  This, in time, will drive down healthcare expenses and boost quality for all.”

Rob Szczerba is the CEO of X Tech Ventures.  Comply with him on Forbes, Twitter (@RJSzczerba), Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Why Mobile Well being Technologies Have not Taken Off (Nevertheless)

Can technologies improve patient security?

‘Technology need to be seen as element of the crew of carers that contribute to patient care,’ writes Mark Ryan. Photograph: Alamy

Considering that 2000, following a report by the chief health care officer, An organisation with memory, a safer NHS has been a key priority. A lot more just lately, the Sign up to security campaign is the newest iteration of the continual aspiration to make the NHS a higher reliability organisation, one that succeeds in avoiding incidents in a large risk atmosphere. Jeremy Hunt has stated that he aims to lessen avoidable deaths by six,000 over three many years.

In an era where folks can control each element of their daily life from a gadget little larger than a credit card, can technologies help us accomplish people aims?

Reported deaths attributable to harm make up about .two% of all reported patient safety incidents, but even now complete more than 3,000 a yr across the NHS. Cutting these by two-thirds is a main challenge. Considerable cultural aspects need to be overcome very first, not least the idea that a person is often to blame, rather than a poorly organised setting.

Technologies need to be seen as element of the staff of carers that contribute to patient care. The benefit of this staff member is it obeys a rigid set of guidelines and behaves regularly. Electronic prescribing has been proven to make prescription mistakes 50% less likely in contrast to handwritten ones. Even so, a recent survey of acute hospitals in England showed that though 69% had some type of e-prescribing, the huge bulk of these had been for discharge medicine or chemotherapy, and only 13% are using it for common ward-based mostly prescribing.

Prescriptions can be checked to conform to wise drug quantities, interactions with other medication, patient allergies and even clinical situations (eg kidney or liver troubles) in totally functioning electronic information, strengthening safety further still. Scanning patient wristbands and matching them to that prescription aids guarantee sufferers receive the right medication. Computerised physician buy entry (Cpoe) can be utilised to group investigations, and remedies, to standardise the level of care. In performing so, any patient presenting with a particular problem can adhere to a set, ideal practice, pathway of care at the click of a button.

But, how do you quit someone heading down the incorrect pathway? Right here as well, IT can assist clinicians in creating the right diagnosis, and re-assess care by creating efficient use of data about us. Technologies has the capacity to search for that details for us, retrieve it and show it in a way that makes the logical diagnosis or conclusion clear. Attaining the correct diagnosis at the initial attempt has been reported to be incorrect in 10 to 50% of consultations. Mistakes in diagnostic considering are not effortless to assess, as harm that outcomes might be categorised as due to a various source, eg triggered by (the wrong) therapy, or a delay to the correct a single. In my view, they contribute an important source of occult risk.

Of program, making the data accessible, depends on possessing all the appropriate information about you stored and available in an electronic record, and shared. Regardless of criticisms above its communications, the anonymised care.data initiative is an critical phase to unveiling both very good and bad patterns in care. Patient portals will quickly be capable to let you see your own overall health records to examine accuracy by way of a secure world wide web connection. Telehealth will take positive aspects of this also. Patients check their situations and transmit info back to a central clinician-manned workstation. This can alert clinicians if a issue is in the early phases of a dilemma, and aid prioritise need to have and intervention.

Lastly, the approach of introducing technological innovation as element of the overall health team should force a complete evaluation of the leads to of dangers, roles and responsibilities of the other members of the staff, the present processes, and the total atmosphere that it has employed. It is unusual, in my knowledge, for a healthcare organisation to ever get a step back and appear at hazards methodically from a genuinely larger prepare, in a much more multi-dimensional aspect, except if it is encouraged to do so by a larger issue. The substantial introduction of a change in doing work practices, produced by technology, can spark this.

Even though engineering behaves consistently, it and the rest of the team can behave poorly if this is not done. Its largest power is also its weakness. Engineering has no capacity to feel for itself and symbiotically needs the extremely issue that it helps make safe, to make it secure as well. Failure to do this just trades one particular danger for yet another.

Dr Mark Ryan is a advisor anaesthetist and clinical safety officer at Rotherham NHS foundation believe in. He is speaking on technology and patient security at Patient Security Congress, which runs from 21 to 22 Could at the BT Convention Centre in Liverpool.

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Can technologies improve patient security?

Dwell Q&A: could technologies accelerate progress in direction of the MDGs?

M Pesa has offered mobile banking to millions outdoors the traditional banking technique. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Photographs

With the deadline for the millennium advancement goals (MDGs) looming, how far will technological innovation support attain its targets?

Helen Clark, head of UNDP, argues technology is taking us in direction of “higher-definition development”. It offers the potential not only to acquire information that helps paints an exact image of poverty, but to facilitate transparency inside of the growth industry.

The hope is that it will also support to allow progress around distinct millennium advancement targets in areas this kind of as well being, education, and hunger.

Tasks such as Zero mothers die, have sought to increase maternal and kid mortality prices, by using mobile phones to disseminate important data to communities lacking in health infrastructure. In agriculture, providers this kind of as IKSL have utilized a comparable engineering to share useful market place and crop info with one.3 million farmers across 18 states of India. In Kenya and Tanzania, M Pesa has effectively enabled hundreds of thousands of individuals left out of the traditional banking technique, to deposit and withdraw money on a mobile cellphone.

Whilst challenges stay about accessibility and affordability, engineering obviously has the possible to educate, empower and contain individuals typically excluded. However, to attain the MDGs, do we need a deeper knowing of how local contexts decide the uptake and affect of a particular technology?

There has been a excellent deal of pleasure about information and communication technologies (ICTs), but is it all about mobile phones and cutting-edge apps? By focusing only on the latest types, it is possible we miss out on a entire swathe of other, now typical, technologies that may possibly be more efficient in the offered context. Must we depart it up to the communities themselves to make a decision what kind of engineering they need to have?

Join us on Thursday 15 Might from 1pm – 3pm BST to examine these and other questions.

The live chat is not video or audio-enabled but will take area in the feedback area (under). Get in touch through globaldevpros@theguardian.com or @Guardiangdp on Twitter to recommend an individual for our specialist panel. Follow the discussion employing the hashtag #globaldevlive.

Reside chat studying checklist

• Generating ICTs operate for social justice and improvement

• How ICT tools are improving efficiency of agricultural improvement

• Linked females: employing mobile phones to shield migrants

Dwell Q&A: could technologies accelerate progress in direction of the MDGs?

As ACA Pushes Connectivity, Residence Wellness Technologies To Double

Fueled by federal mandates and stimulus bucks that have aided medical care providers connect to every single other and their patients, the residence overall health technologies industry is projected to double to $ five.8 billion by the finish of 2018, in accordance to a new examination.

A new report from data and analytics firm IHS IHS says the market involves every little thing from “independent residing services” this kind of as motion sensors to detect home activity of the elderly to client health care units like blood glucose and blood strain monitors. The growth also includes “wearable technology” this kind of as fitness and heart-fee monitors.

The trend is fueled by two laws signed by President Obama. In 2009, Obama signed into law the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Well being Act, (HITECH) which was component of the federal stimulus legislation recognized as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

The legislation provides a lot more than $ twenty billion to help medical professionals and hospitals move into the digital age by means of the use of electronic well being data and connected overall health info technology.  There are also penalties in that legislation in the form of reduced Medicare payments if doctors and hospitals cannot show an adequately doing work electronic health record system by subsequent year.

“As connectivity and interoperability is growing, these products – each gadgets and solutions – are beginning to converge offering consumers much more comprehensive answers,” says Roeen Roashan, IHS’ analyst for buyer health-related products and digital health. “As they turn into more complete, the gap in between clinical care and property health gets to be far more narrow, which is essential to offer patient centered care.”

IHS sees technologies providers providers like AT$ T (T) Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S) enjoying a crucial position in this hard work.

The trend toward these new technologies and solutions will be driven by employers, private insurers and the Affordable Care Act, which is moving health care care suppliers away from charge-for-service medicine in which they are paid based on volume of providers to reimbursement primarily based on the worth of care they give. This trend utilizes technologies to manage populations of patients to and maintain them out of the hospital the place care is more high-priced with a medical professional or nurse practitioner managing the patient care and not always in person.

Doctors and hospitals are forming accountable care organizations, ACOs, to contract with insurers and employers. These suppliers treat massive populations of sufferers and have a financial incentive to preserve them nicely. Significant insurers like UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna Aetna (AET), Humana Humana (HUM) and Blue Cross and Blue Shield strategies are significantly growing the quantity of contracts they have with ACOs.

“Accountable care organizations rely on patient produced data to carry out efficient population wellness management,” Roashan mentioned.

Overall health care suppliers need to have to give far more preventive care for “the healthy” and adjust behaviors of “those in threat of acquiring chronic disease or any other issue.”

Pondering how Obamacare will impact your well being care? The Forbes eBook Inside Obamacare: The Correct For America’s Ailing Wellness Care System answers that question and more. Accessible now at Amazon and Apple.

As ACA Pushes Connectivity, Residence Wellness Technologies To Double

Technologies Insights to Aid Hospitals Navigate the "Perfect Storm"

In the rapidly changing healthcare sector, maintaining up with new technologies and innovations has grow to be much less of a wish and far more of a necessity.  To far better comprehend the possible effect of these new alterations, we reached out to executives at many organizations in the healthcare sector.  We asked each of them what guidance they would give to Chief Info Officers (CIOs) of healthcare companies as they navigate a “perfect storm” of technological, regulatory, legislative, and cultural adjustments.

Proactive is the new normal.  Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) proactively display their population, identify problems early, and use people outcomes intelligently to bring sufferers in for preventive treatment.  Going forward, they’ll have a large aggressive advantage above hospitals that just wait for sufferers to come in.  For CIOs, the challenge will be setting up systems that instantly screen sufferers based mostly on the individual info they give, recognize the health issues they are susceptible to, and integrate seamlessly with all aspects of patient care.

Along the very same lines, hospital IT leaders need to encourage and integrate the use of research and patient data in the screening approach.  For illustration, rather than pushing out details on “Five Methods to Avert Sleeplessness,” healthcare providers can get what they know about rest apnea – such as the typical age range, gender, and physique-mass index (BMI) of someone with rest apnea – and send out a 5-question quiz to a pre-targeted population.  This interactive technique could diagnose patients who wouldn’t otherwise know they had a wellness difficulty.  By assisting healthcare organizations better make use of investigation to section the population, CIOs can support these organizations get a far more proactive part in patients’ health.  -Boris Glants, Chief Technological innovation Officer, Tonic Wellness

Intensive Care Unit (Photograph credit score: Calleamanecer by way of Wikipedia)

 

Use technological innovation to fill the gaps.  With latest healthcare reform, between other modifications, the industry is beginning to deploy distinct payment mechanisms for healthcare.  Rather than paying as they go, patients will quickly shell out suppliers for the good quality of the care they get.  This payment model is shifting care to a new model named population well being, which will have a large affect on CIOs and how they seem at the two their position and that of electronic records.

The huge question will be how do we offer equipment and technologies so that irrespective of spot, sufferers get the care they want?  When this reimbursement model comes into play, the major concern for hospital CIOs will be how to help caregivers maintain up with individuals when they aren’t within a health care facility.  CIOs will be tasked with locating methods to employ engineering to communicate with sufferers and fill in the gaps among doctor’s visits.  For example, a physician with a diabetic patient will only be capable to give the highest good quality of care if they can – at any point in time – see his or her most latest insulin intake.  When this is attainable, the next stage will be to track information this kind of as glucose amounts, and flag them if and when abnormalities surface. -Karen Thomas, Senior VP and CIO, Primary Line Health

You’re in healthcare initial, Details Technological innovation 2nd.  The reality is, no matter whether you’re a medical doctor or an intern for a healthcare technologies supplier, you’re in the healthcare industry.  That means you are working toward one end result above all other folks: to preserve individuals wholesome.  For hospital CIOs, this indicates creating strategic selections in regard to which technological innovation providers, platforms, infrastructure, and applications will allow hospitals and other healthcare institutions to offer a consistent level of top quality care.  Especially, CIOs in the healthcare sector should continually decide which elements of technologies are very best managed in-house, and which elements are better managed – for quality support delivery and expense effectiveness – by a third get together.  - Jack Dziak, Executive VP, Managed Companies, SunGard Availability Services

Keep one particular stage ahead.  Just lately, the volume of mobile applications for well being and wellness on the industry has grown dramatically.  There are approximately 50,000 healthcare-relevant mobile applications available on iTunes today.  Mobile applications give hospitals the capability to monitor patients virtually, without getting them come into a facility.  Even so, linked overall health is producing the healthcare sector take a difficult seem at privacy and compliance.  Every application and platform is collecting more and far more information, rising the scope of what information requirements to be protected.  Do we have the greatest infrastructure and appropriate regulations in place to enable this virtualized environment for the healthcare market?

For CIOs, part of adapting to this new normal is locating health-related staff that understands the latest compliance updates and rules, and creating an IT infrastructure that can scale, evolve, and expand with your hospital and the business. CIOs want to be vigilant and proactively investigating in purchase to build an setting that’s responsive to change. -Bert Robles, Senior VP and Corporate CIO, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation

Be inclusive now to put together for prospective breaches later on.  By leveraging the knowledge of people outside of the IT division now, CIOs can recognize best practices in patient privacy, close prospective gaps in protection across the organization, and be far better prepared need to potential problems close to a information breach arise.  A lot of say it’s only a matter of time ahead of every single entity experiences a breach.  Crucial topics to discuss with leaders in wellness details management (HIM), compliance, and danger contain: patient consent management, accounting of disclosures, protected health details, process and governance redesign, and centralized and de-centralized approaches to Overall health Details Exchanges (HIEs).  - Gavin Krumenacker, VP, HIE Remedies and Enterprise Improvement, MRO Corp

Although every single of these industry leaders undoubtedly has a various point of view on how ideal to integrate new technology into the healthcare ecosystem, they all agree on one central theme: individuals should usually come first.

Robert J. Szczerba is the CEO of X Tech Ventures and writer of the Forbes column “Rocket Science Meets Brain Surgical procedure.”  Comply with him via Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Technologies Insights to Aid Hospitals Navigate the "Perfect Storm"

Mobile technologies will nurse the NHS back to health

A sensible nurse call technique that can send patient alerts or lab final results immediately to the telephone or tablet of the closest, most appropriately certified member of personnel. Photograph: Alamy

Overhauls, strategic modifications, new goals: the NHS is no stranger to grand claims and strategies about the potential of healthcare. Even so, all too frequently these plans are political footballs, undertaking little to boost day-to-day patient care or the operating lives of frontline healthcare pros.

We all know that in the face of price range cuts and rising admissions, NHS experts at every degree are under pressure to do much more with much less. Whilst alter in the NHS is no straightforward task, investment targeted in the proper places supplies enormous possibilities to enhance efficiency, minimize fees and improve patient care. 1 latest initiative, the NHS Nursing Engineering Fund, has provided some hope for individuals at the frontline of wellness providers.

A latest freedom of info request submitted to NHS trusts across England highlighted that, despite the pledge to create a “paperless NHS” by 2018, two-thirds of nurses and medical employees continue to depend on handwritten notes and corridor conversations to communicate essential patient data. An additional survey of NHS staff recently located that, despite the fact that 37% of those surveyed did not have entry to a Wi-Fi network installed at work, 66% felt that this would increase their ability to provide good top quality care.

This program of pagers, fixed terminals and handwritten notes draws nurses away from patients. But sophisticated mobile communication technologies could flip the circumstance close to, permitting nurses to efficiently be at their patients’ bedsides every time needed. Technological innovation can determine new approaches to lessen administration and pace up decision-producing, information transfer, delegation and products obtaining. The correct tech indicates nurses can invest much more time with individuals, imporving the quality of care they can offer.

The essential is to consider benefit of possibilities such as the Nursing Technological innovation Fund to adopt engineering that can make it simpler to talk and share information on the move. Nursing is clearly not a sedentary function. If nurses are equipped with products and tools that permit them to speedily input information, speak to colleagues or react to sufferers, they will be cost-free to target their attention in which and when it is essential most.

Take into account 3 straightforward abilities that could run on a mobile device and improve the lives of clinical workers and individuals alike:

• A wise nurse phone method that can send patient alerts or lab benefits immediately to the cellphone of the closest, most appropriately qualified member of staff. This means that nurses can respond to patients’ requirements right away without automatically having to stroll back to their space. The consequence? Peace of mind and a comprehensive view of activity on the ward.

• Barcode scanning would help make certain the proper medication is being provided to the proper patient or that the proper man or woman has turned up for surgical treatment accompanied by the proper paperwork. By employing a device equipped with a scanner nurses can be rapidly assured that no errors have been manufactured.

• Geo-area of essential tools could conserve hours of wasted time browsing the hospital and make certain vital pieces of kit are well distributed across wards. Wheelchairs, health-related units, even beds can be very easily fitted with RFID tags and then identified with a mobile device, allowing nurses to find what they require quickly and simply.

• Static engineering, no matter where it is located, will produce delays. Quick intervals of time spent walking to an information source add up if repeated above the program of a prolonged shift.

Even so, when we talk mobile products we do not imply customer-grade smartphones and tablets. A day in a ward or in A&ampE will swiftly show that these flashy bits of tools aren’t lower out for serious function. In a demanding hospital setting, smartphones will be susceptible to breakages, water injury from chemical cleansers, drained batteries and network blackspots – major to inconvenience, expensive repairs and an incredibly large expense of ownership. More seriously, we noticed lately that smartphones pose a hygiene threat, potentially spreading viruses like MRSA.

The NHS requirements to invest in objective-created, intelligent mobile communication gadgets if it is to increase patient experiences, nurse satisfaction and hospital efficiency. And with £70m of the Nursing Engineering Fund nonetheless to be distributed, the implies are ultimately accessible to make a difference.

Simon Watson is director at Spectralink

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Mobile technologies will nurse the NHS back to health

Will Digital Technologies Disrupt The Psychotherapy Market?

@giorodriguez  Most likely.  And a discipline named constructive psychology may be helping to form the disruption

Not lengthy in the past, I wrote a quick article about the curious rise of a new technology group, which for lack of a greater term can be called pleased-tech.  I asked the question, in my headline:  “Can Social Technologies Help Make You Satisfied?”  The short answer:   “yes, but it depends on what you mean by pleased.” The inspiration for the post was an application known as Happify, which, according to its founders, took its own inspiration from the positive psychology movement.  The motion — an increasingly influential discipline of practice that is tough the psychotherapy status quo – asks society to target not just on what can make individuals miserable but also on what can make them flourish.

The core insight from that report was that apps like Happify were scratching an itch that engineering was prepared to scratch.  But my view, at the time, was that technological innovation was only scratching the surface.  Lately, nevertheless, I started to enjoy that the provenance of some of these apps – the constructive psychology movement – may possibly be driving a more substantial tech disruption.  But, as we shall see, not all disruption is destructive.  The influence of good psychology on tech-based mostly disruption has as a result far loved a mostly good storyline.

Expansion of providers

1st, by shifting the concentrate from psychological sickness to psychological wellness, the positive psych motion is not just introducing a paradigm shift but provoking an expansion of providers.  In addition to talking treatment (on the wane) and psychopharmacology (holding powerful), practitioners of good psych bring a combine of new interventions to the counseling expertise.  And the practitioners consist of specialists qualified in the oldest of traditions:  MDs.

On a recent enterprise journey to New York, I met up with Samantha Boardman, who numerous many years ago supplemented her health care training with a credential in positive psychology awarded by the University of Pennsylvania.  The plan, the first of its kind, is led by the founder of good psychology, Martin Seligman.  These days Boardman is assisting the school create the program, even though incorporating its teachings into her psychiatric work. “Positive psychology has altered my practice on many amounts,” she wrote in a current electronic mail exchange. “It has changed the way I technique patients. Rather than focusing solely on what is wrong with them I also search for what is ‘right’ with them and check out their strengths.”

Boardman had previously in reality shared this information level with me, and it was effortless to see how the small tweaks in habits advocated by the motion – i.e., expressing gratitude, savoring constructive experiences, recording your blessings on a daily basis – deserve at least a number of minutes in the hour one will get in standard treatment.  But it was not what Boardman is doing in the offline globe that got me pondering.  It’s what she is doing in the on the web world.  Like numerous other graduates of the Penn program, Boardman is utilizing the World wide web not just to publish her observations but to prescribe the tiny conduct tweaks in little digital doses.  And Boardman does this especially well.  She dispenses these small bits of virtual psychopharma in a superbly designed weblog known as Constructive Prescription, which characteristics branded beats and columns like “Mind Tonic,” “Positive Rx,” and “Visual Prozac.”  It is not silly things – she backs up her prescriptions with tough science, and, like all great medical doctors, with care and empathy. What’s outstanding, of program, is that Boardman is using digital artifacts as the units of therapeutic currency itself.  And when you contemplate the artistry of the artifacts – the high quality of the style and the top quality of the text – you will see that it is in a various category from the tips column, a mainstay even today in mainstream media.  In other words, the addition of optimistic psychology to the psychotherapeutic toolkit – which favors bite-sized experiential exercise routines – very easily lends itself to digital experiments.

Growth of practitioners

And you really don’t have to be an MD like Boardman or any variety of licensed psychotherapist or counselor to engage in these experiments.  You might be a physical therapist (Larry Bentz). You may possibly be a coach (Emilia Lahti). You might be a could, in fact, be a tech entrepreneur — like the individuals who began Happify and other pleased-tech apps – and get an even much more significant interest in the possible of tech for probably disruptive experiments.  The growth of market place entrants, especially from tech, is accelerating disruption in the psychotherapy.  Which is not to say that conventional psychotherapy is doomed the need persists, and there is no substitute for dwell expertise.  But the disruption that digital has wrought in other markets – say media, education, and old-time retail – may well force psychotherapists to rethink what enterprise they are genuinely in, or at least reimagine their company models.

One factor that is confident to get attention:  the business model for distribution.  This yr at SxSW Interactive – an annual convocation for innovation in tech – a new startup referred to as ThriveOn won a prize in the overall health-care group with a platform that promises to provide “personalized on the internet plans coached by skilled pros to strengthen your psychological overall health.”  The platform is not yet available, though you can consider a extremely extraordinary evaluation (which I assume leverages some of the core IP).  But the stage actually worth making here is that the most disruptive idea in ThriveOn is the redistribution of articles and talent, the same forces that are reshaping other markets.

Towards a a lot more purposeful disruption

Even though not technically a good psychology app – related philosophical bent, but from a more various background of founders – ThriveOn may win huge because it is scratching a bigger itch.  But I’m betting there are even higher disruptions to come.  One particular purpose is that the psychotherapy market place is basically also big to ignore. Though antidepressants peaked in 2008 at $ 12 billion, they are nevertheless, in accordance to a current research, “the most consumed class of therapeutics in the US.”  The place there’s a market place to disrupt, there will be disruption.  One more purpose is the seemingly unstoppable demand for self-improvement and self-monitoring apps and devices the future of that trend factors to innovation in artificial intelligence, the perceived threat to so many professions. But I’m betting on nevertheless yet another driver of innovation, and it goes in the opposite course of artificial intelligence:  the need for a optimistic storyline for a profession that’s frankly in need to have of a improve in morale.  In an insightful cover story for the New York Instances Magazine in 2010, Daphne Merkin chronicled her struggles in turning into clinical psychologist at a time when speaking treatment was beginning its decline.  What she realized:  she wasn’t extremely great at branding herself.

As a business guy who as soon as regarded as — and still considers — the existence of a counselor, I identified her conclusion depressing.  But if good psychology can aid specialists plot a a lot more productive path into the marketplace, and if technological innovation innovation can assist facilitate people transitions – say via even a lot more clever techniques to match counselees with counselors, both online and offline, the place some of the much more critical things still requirements to happen – that would be a blessing worth recording.

Will Digital Technologies Disrupt The Psychotherapy Market?

Stanford Healthcare Technologies Exposes The Hidden Maladies Of Sculptor Auguste Rodin"s Celebrated Hands

One particular has a ganglion cyst. One more demonstrates signs of Charcot-Marie-Tooth illness. A third is badly maimed, with many broken metacarpals. A fourth has an amputated thumb.

These are some of the hands sculpted by Auguste Rodin. Formed in wax and cast in bronze, they are amongst the most expressive artworks of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their aesthetic merits have been extensively talked about by a great number of artwork historians. However until just lately, virtually no one attended to their pathology.

An modern new exhibit at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center rectifies this oversight by exhibiting a choice of Rodin’s hands with each other with state-of-the-artwork healthcare scans of true hands struggling from equivalent ailments. Interactive digital versions integrate the three-dimensional medical imagery with 3D scans of the sculptures. On screen, the anatomy can be entirely explored, and deformities can even be repaired with virtual surgical treatment.

Health care diagnosis gets to be a form of connoisseurship at Stanford. The aesthetic expertise is augmented by anatomical understanding. The digital models permit lay individuals to see Rodin’s hands by way of the eyes of a surgeon. What could effortlessly have been a trivial workout in health care classification gets to be a beguiling new mode of observation.

And it provokes us to inquire why Rodin so usually chose to sculpt diseased hands. (He was a normal at the Musée Dupuytren in Paris, a health care museum filled with anatomical anomalies.) One plausible purpose is that the illnesses exaggerated typical poses, amplifying the emotions associated with gestures to this kind of an extent that an personal hand could express as considerably as a whole body. One more chance is that the deformities nudged his hands towards abstraction. Definitely these are both consequences of his selection, whether or not or not they had been his intention.

There is nevertheless one more consequence, which may possibly be most modern of all. His hands with ganglion cysts and Charcot-Marie-Tooth illness are strikingly gorgeous, as beautiful as those of the young lovers in The Kiss. Sculpting ailment, Rodin broadened standards of attractiveness. He knocked the metacarpals out of normalcy.

Stick to me on Twitter… uncover my most recent book, Forged: Why Fakes Are The Fantastic Art Of Our Age, on Amazon, and see some of my recent artwork projects in the latest issue of New Philosopher.

Stanford Healthcare Technologies Exposes The Hidden Maladies Of Sculptor Auguste Rodin"s Celebrated Hands

Two Examples Highlight Difficulties Of Demonstrating The Advantage Of Digital Health Technologies

We are consistently advised healthcare is “ripe” for disruptive innovation, a approach of inventive destruction enabled by the interesting new technologies of digital wellness.  Yet, the robust demonstration of nearly any substantive advantage (beyond probably transient delight and toxic self- absorption) has been slow in coming.

The issues of moving a well being-associated technologies from guarantee to effect are illustrated nicely by two recent attempts to cautiously evaluate the benefits of intriguing new units.

The Propeller Wellness Inhaler Keep track of

The initial research (NCT01509183) was sponsored by Asthmapolis (now Propeller Wellness), and sought to examine regardless of whether use of the company’s inhaler monitoring device resulted in enhanced asthma control, the study’s main endpoint.  Manage, measured by the Asthma Management Test (ACT) would be assessed at four, 8, and 12 months.

The device senses inhaler use – in this study, the use of quick-acting “rescue” inhaler medicines, especially — and communicates data to sufferers (via an app) and to companies (via reports and adjust of standing alerts), according to MedPage These days.  In this examine, asthmatic individuals who had seasoned a “healthcare utilization event” in the preceding yr were randomized into either an energetic group , acquiring the gadget and connected data, or a group obtaining a deactivated gadget that offered no supplemental data.

As research co-writer Bob Quade explains in an e mail, “the fundamental intervention is information.

At a nationwide meeting last November, interim outcomes have been presented.  These data unveiled slight enhancements in the ACT in the lively arm compared to the management arm in each adults and children, differences not statistically important.

Nonetheless, extra evaluation discovered topics in the actively monitored group utilized rescue inhalers drastically significantly less often than the manage group.  Maybe most strikingly, inpatient days were diminished from .225 per particular person per yr in manage group to .087 in lively group emergency area visits decreased marginally (from .141 per particular person per yr in manage group to .103 in lively group) as nicely.

This reduction in utilization is claimed to be associated with a financial savings of $ 688.05 per patient (compared to baseline)  subjects  in the handle group, notably, were identified to save $ 281.95 per patient compared to baseline, suggesting a regression to the indicate impact, not surprising offered that subjects had been selected based on experiencing a healthcare event in the previous year (most asthma sufferers really don’t knowledge occasions in any given 12 months).  It is also feasible that basically participating in the examine may possibly have contributed to a adjust in utilization (the Hawthorne impact at operate).  Each choices were  acknowledged by Quade.

Nonetheless, the energetic group nevertheless exhibited a dramatic cost savings (~$ 400 per patient) linked with decreased utilization in contrast to the management group, in spite of the lack of significant adjustments in asthma handle as measured by ACT scores.  This presents a actual puzzle.

Some, such as wellness guru Al Lewis (author of Why No person Believes The Numbers, and much more just lately, Surviving Workplace Wellness) appear at these outcomes incredulously.

“Their personal numbers do not add up,” he asserts in an e mail.  “First, they say it’s not statistically a considerable difference.”

“Even if it had been significant,” Lewis continues, the difference reported on the ACT “is one thing like two.2% improvement in the score.  Then, they claim an inpatient reduction of 62%. This violates a number of of the guidelines in Why No person Believes.  First, costs can not decline that significantly and 2nd, the price reduction has to tie to the quality improvement.”

An alternative explanation, even so, is that there are improvements in care not reflected in the ACT measure for instance, if the intervention does not prevent exacerbation but catches them early ample to allow them to be managed as an outpatient rather than an inpatient, this could theoretically conserve substantial bucks, nevertheless be challenging to select up on the ACT.

This review highlights the difficulties of rigorously demonstrating the benefit of a digital well being intervention that appears to make a globe of sense.  It seems logical, even evident, that improved monitoring of rescue inhaler use, coupled with improved, fast communication with individuals and companies would enhance disease management.  As examine principal investigator Rajan Merchant points out, it enables the care of asthma sufferers to transition from episodic to steady – a single of the key ambitions of digital overall health.

I look forward to examining a peer-reviewed publication when the examine is finished later on this 12 months, and all data are go through out.  My suspicion is that there may ultimately be a price-savings attained (vs the handle group), and perhaps ultimately a modest improvement in asthma manage.   Whether this economically justifies the use of the intervention will need to have to be determined, given the expense of the units and software, and the further supplier time potentially needed.

Two Examples Highlight Difficulties Of Demonstrating The Advantage Of Digital Health Technologies

OMsignal Delivers Wearable Technologies To Captures Your Bio-Data

Wearable technologies, along with 3D printing, mobile cash, and sensible cities are just a few of the tech trends for 2014 and the coming many years.

A new Canadian company, OMsignal has produced a bio sensor shirt they hope will modify how individuals get fit, stay wholesome and aid usher in the era connected gadgets in our lives.

OMSignal’s Co-founder and CEO, Stephane Marceau says that in 1o many years, you won’t even request and expect the bra or underwear you get to be bio-sensing and will help you reside a fitter, more healthy and happier life.

Over time, sensors will be embedded into the fibres themselves, and this means you will have at any second millions of folks bio-streaming their physiological information into the cloud as they go about their every single day lives.  This live pool biological signal in genuine daily life never existed in recorded background. I hope that linked clothes will be like electrical power in 10 many years – Stephane Marceau, Co-Founder and CEO, OMsignal.

The OmSignal Bio-Sensing shirt

And Marceau’s new shirt does a lot of issues.  First, it looks good. 2nd, it is a compression garment — which implies it can activate blood circulation, enhances efficiency and helps muscle groups recover more quickly. 2nd, it adapts to your physique shape and moves like you move and it has the traditional sports gear attributes of odor handle and wicks away moisture. And, you can wash it in your washing machine. Neat proper?

The embedded sensors in the shirt, which you can’t even see, monitor your heart rate, breathing and exercise whilst the OMsignal app exhibits your bio-information in real-time on your mobile phone.

Marceau says the sensors in the OMsignal shirt capture the ABC’s of wellness and wellness — action, breathing and cardiac.

“The shirt or bra itself is the sensor: we capture signals from the heart by means of conductive yarn, inserted in the shirt at the proper location to get great signal,” adds Marceau.

The shirt is also genuinely hectic. All of  your customized bio data is getting captured even when you are away from your phone — with a battery existence of up to three-five days it connects to your cellphone by way of Bluetooth.

The team at OMsignal is as exclusive as the shirt. Comprised of physicians, surgeons, textile designers, vogue designers, computer software and UX engineers and bio-engagement scientists. Yes, you heard that appropriate.

To make the OMsignal shirt, a bio-engagement scientist like Pascal Fortier, who also has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and a biology background, needs to harness the biological signal of the individual sporting the shirt. These are signals emitted by the human physique are topic to infinite artifacts in genuine life.

“Our scientists develop tools to measure and optimize that signal,” says Marceau. “They function with the textile/vogue group to ensure the building of our garments delivers a great biological signal.”

With the kick off of the Human Brain Venture and other academic initiatives striving to realize the brain and the information it can approach, Neuroscience has become the subject du jour.

Fortier’s task is to understand what the physique has to say about its state and how to listen to it. He functions closely with the textile crew to improve signal recording from the entire body and filter the meaningful data from the noise of daily life.

“Neuroscience is indeed a sizzling topic these days, but we’re about to get useful information about what the brain has to say immediately and we’ll have the engineering to discover meaning out of it. But the way we’ll listen to it could very easily be wearable,” adds Fortier. “OMsignal is the closest you will uncover and this is what attracts me in my function as a bio-engagement scientist here.”

Dr. Jesse Slade Schantz, OMsignal’s Chief Medical Officer, is also a training surgeon. So why is a surgeon involved in wearables?

“I believe that MRIs and other imaging modalities are fantastic for looking at anatomy. Questionnaires allow the crude capability to inform if a therapy has produced a difference in a patient’s illness, but ask general questions,” said Schantz. “A clinic check out has constantly struck me as inefficient in acquiring to the heart of a patient’s issue. What we’re missing in medication is an objective, correct way for sufferers to tell us their sickness story. I think wearables are portion of that missing hyperlink.”

OMsignal Delivers Wearable Technologies To Captures Your Bio-Data