US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

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'Big Chicken': The Medical Mystery That Traced Back To Slaughterhouse Workers

Maryn McKenna | NPR | September 10, 2017

Reimert Ravenholt, a physician at the Seattle Department of Public Health, was puzzled. It was the winter of 1956, and for weeks now, local doctors had been calling him, describing blue-collar men coming into their offices with hot, red rashes and swollen boils running up their arms. The men were feverish and in so much pain they had to stay home from work, sometimes for weeks...

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Creating a Knowledge Infrastructure for the ‘Learning Health System’

David Raths | KM World | September 14, 2017

The idea that the healthcare industry can study the data being created in electronic health records (EHR) to foster ongoing improvement is not a new one, but it is gaining momentum. A “learning health system” is one that commits to the use of data as a byproduct of care for continuous learning. Clinicians and health system researchers want to tackle perhaps their industry’s most significant knowledge management challenge: how to capture the results of research into clinical best practices and more quickly feed it back to doctors and nurses at the point of care...

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Flesh-eating Bacteria, Cancer-causing Chemicals, and Mold: Harvey and Irma's Lingering Health Threats

Julia Belluz | Vox | September 28, 2017

In the weeks following Hurricane Irma, parts of Florida have been awash in millions of gallons of sewage. Meanwhile, in Texas, oil refineries and chemical plants have dumped a year’s worth of cancer-causing pollutants into the air following Hurricane Harvey. In both states, doctors are on the lookout for an uptick in respiratory problems, skin infections, and mosquito-borne diseases brought on by the water and mold the storms left behind...

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HLN Releases v 1.9.1.0 of its Open Source Immunization Forecaster

Press Release | HLN Consulting | October 11, 2017

HLN Consulting has released a new version of the award winning Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a service-oriented, standards-based immunization forecasting software system that evaluates a patient's immunization history and generates the appropriate immunization recommendations. ICE can be used in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems...

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Millions of Americans Live Nowhere Near a Hospital, Jeopardizing Their Lives

Caitlin Ostroff and Ciara Bri'd Frisbie | CNN | August 3, 2017

As a nurse practitioner, Wanda Liddell knew it was a medical emergency when she saw one of her patients struggling to breathe last month. But in her backcountry town of Cross City, Florida, the ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive. Even worse, it was another 45 miles to the nearest hospital. Liddell faces this situation often and always wonders, what if? She is one of many medical providers working in towns 30 miles or more from a hospital, a distance that can make the difference between life or death...

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New Arms Race: Science Versus Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs

Tomasz Pierscionek | RT | March 24, 2017

The death rate from bacterial infections plummeted following the discovery of penicillin. However, these microbes developed ways to resist our antibiotics. What threats do superbugs pose and what factors contribute to their emergence? The discovery and development of antibiotics saved millions of lives during the latter half of the 20th century. Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who witnessed soldiers with infected wounds perish while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, per chance discovered a penicillin producing mold in 1928...

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Peer into the Post-Apocalyptic Future of Antimicrobial Resistance

Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker | Wired | March 18, 2017

Aout 4 million years ago, a cave was forming in the Delaware Basin of what is now Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. From that time on, Lechuguilla Cave remained untouched by humans or animals until its discovery in 1986—an isolated, pristine primeval ecosystem. When the bacteria found on the walls of Lechuguilla were analyzed, many of the microbes were determined not only to have resistance to natural antibiotics like penicillin, but also to synthetic antibiotics that did not exist on earth until the second half of the twentieth century...

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Peer into the Post-Apocalyptic Future of Antimicrobial Resistance

Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker | Wired | March 18, 2017

Aout 4 million years ago, a cave was forming in the Delaware Basin of what is now Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. From that time on, Lechuguilla Cave remained untouched by humans or animals until its discovery in 1986—an isolated, pristine primeval ecosystem. When the bacteria found on the walls of Lechuguilla were analyzed, many of the microbes were determined not only to have resistance to natural antibiotics like penicillin, but also to synthetic antibiotics that did not exist on earth until the second half of the twentieth century...

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The Pathway to Patient Data Ownership and Better Health

Katherine A. Mikk, Harry A. Sleeper, and Eric J. Topol | JAMA | September 25, 2017

Digital health data are rapidly expanding to include patient-reported outcomes, patient-generated health data, and social determinants of health. Measurements collected in clinical settings are being supplemented by data collected in daily life, such as data derived from wearable sensors and smartphone apps, and access to other data, such as genomic data, is rapidly increasing. One projection suggests that a billion individuals will have their whole genome sequenced in the next several years. These additional sources of data, whether patient-generated, genomic, or other, are critical for a comprehensive picture of an individual’s health...

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The Secretary’s Ventures Fund Announces 2017 Projects

Press Release | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | May 17, 2017
 
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, M.D. today announced the selection of five entrepreneurial projects for investment by the Secretary’s Ventures Fund (HHS Ventures). The projects were chosen from across HHS and are part of the latest round of funding and support designed to advance the Department’s innovation agenda... HHS Ventures is a highly competitive effort that provides growth-stage funding and support to HHS employees with proven ideas for how to dramatically improve their office, agency, or the Department’s ability to carry out its mission...

The Storm Has Passed, But Puerto Rico’s Health Faces Prolonged Recovery

Carmen Heredia Rodriguez and Rachel Bluth | Kaiser Health News | October 16, 2017

As President Donald Trump signals impatience to wind down emergency aid to Puerto Rico, the challenges wrought by Hurricane Maria to the health of Puerto Ricans and the island’s fragile health system are in many ways just beginning. Three weeks after that direct hit, nearly four dozen deaths are associated with the storm. But the true toll on Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents is likely to involve sickness and loss of life that will only become apparent in the coming months and in indirect ways...

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Two Years In, What Has Apple ResearchKit Accomplished?

Kate Sheridan | STAT | May 26, 2017

In March 2015, Apple promised to change the way medical research could be done. It launched ResearchKit, which could turn millions of iPhones around the world into a “powerful tool for medical research,” the company said at the time. Since then, ResearchKit — software that gives would-be app developers a library of coding to create health apps on the iPhone and Apple Watch — has spawned a number of studies: One team has used it to create an app to track Parkinson’s symptoms; another is trying out a screening protocol for autism. A third helps people inventory the moles on their skin and evaluate how they have changed over time...

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University of Oklahoma Researcher Asks Twitter Users to Help with Research

Press Release | Oklahoma University Gallogly College of Engineering | May 26, 2017

Did you ever consider that your tweets could be used for scientific research? Researchers at the University of Oklahoma are taking to the Twitterverse to help them investigate the use of Twitter for public health research. Christan Grant, a computer science researcher in the Gallogly College of Engineering, is asking active Twitter users over the age of 18 to complete a quick two-minute online survey...

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What Would Keep Ebola From Spreading In The US? Investing In Simple Research Years Ago.

Maryn McKenna | WIRED | October 13, 2014

There’s a thing you learn, when you’ve been writing about infectious diseases for a while: People love drama. They’re not so much with detail...

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When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes

David Epstein and Propublica | The Atlantic | February 22, 2017

Fiirst, listen to the story with the happy ending: At 61, the executive was in excellent health. His blood pressure was a bit high, but everything else looked good, and he exercised regularly. Then he had a scare. He went for a brisk post-lunch walk on a cool winter day, and his chest began to hurt. Back inside his office, he sat down, and the pain disappeared as quickly as it had come...

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