Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category
It's hard to keep up with the latest trends in nutrition and so much talk of superfoods with high nutrient and low calories. Fruit such as blueberries and pomegranates have large level of antioxidants. Certainly in the case of blueberries and pomegranates you don't have to worry about flavor. It's amazing the variety of tastes you can create with the two fruits alone. Add some bananas and you are really rocking.
Some other things seem more exotic, like Chlorella, a single cell algae with a very high level of protein. I watched a T.V. show where the host drank a large beaker full of the green algae. The reaction was not very good. Luckily they come in pills and powder so you can make your own shakes or just drink a pill down with water. Chlorella really represents a type of liquid vitamin supplements when it's hydrated. It's amazing to see all the dietary alternatives and energy supplements available. Mixing something like Chlorella and blueberries in a shake can get you off to a great start to the day.
It's funny though because I think back to my grandfather and all the nutritional supplements he took with a long life to show for it. He would take wheat germ and fish oil along with a wide range of minerals and vitamins. I have not moved to the wheat germ yet but who knows?
Image by D. Sharon Pruitt
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With all the excitement about the health care reform and climbing costs of the entire health care system it's amazing to consider that much of the health system still uses paper to administer patients records. The task is so monumental that it's difficult to see how an entire industry can be reformed so soon. Current medical data systems are very much proprietary and do not share well with others. In order for the data conversion to take place it needs to be simplified for the health care professionals.
This may appear simple but the requirements of a software package that is
secure
reliable
Can exchange data with other remote systems using high-level encryption
modular: so various software interfaces can be developed with medical digital equipment and analog.
Fast
modular data storage
Simplicity
Can be easily deployed in medical offices.
Software aside the data storage requirements would really need to be mapped out on a local health care provider level and a On-line database for medical records. Essentially the local doctors records are uploaded every so often to a national database (or regional). Records would need to be scanned in or manually entered into a database in order to keep local copies current and the larger backup database that provides coverage to all subscribing agencies. This would be a non-profit type operation.
There are some medical "PACS " currently available ( picture archiving and communication systems ) but there is no common image metadata platform. Meta data is the 'tag' that is often attached to a image that tells a wide range of information about the image. Data can also be added to the meta description to help identify the image changes. DICOM does not fully specify the 'metadata' tags stored with images to annotate and describe them, so integrators of medical imaging equipment have wide latitude to create DICOM-compliant files that differ in the meaning and representation of this metadata.
A feature common to most PACS is to read and store the metadata from all the images into a central database however the differences between integrators' DICOM implementations make this a difficult task. It really appears to be a daunting task to even get the industry to convert to a common metatag or be able to ignore non-compliant data.
With several studies showing only 22% of PACS in health care and many doctors completely in the dark about how to go about converting it's going to a be a task in line with building the pyramids.
Or building a superhighway for the health care of our nation.
http://medical.nema.org
Flickr image takomabibelot
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