 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
This week, the academic community provided a rather impressive example of the promise of neural implants. Using an implant, a paralyzed individual managed to type out roughly 90 characters per minute simply by imagining that he was writing those characters out by hand Dreaming is doing Previous attempts at providing typing capabilities to paralyzed people via implants have involved giving subjects a virtual keyboard and letting them maneuver a cursor with their mind. The process is effective but slow, and it requires the user's full attention, as the subject has to track the progress of the cursor and determine when to perform the equivalent of a key press. It also requires the user to spend the time to learn how to control the system. But there are other possible routes to getting characters out of the brain and onto the page. Somewhere in our writing thought process, we form the intention of using a specific character, and using an implant to track this intention could potentially work. Unfortunately, the process is not especially well understood. Downstream of that intention, a decision is transmitted to the motor cortex, where it's translated into actions. Again, there's an intent stage, where the motor cortex determines it will form the letter (by typing or writing, for example), which is then translated into the specific muscle motions required to perform the action. These processes are much better understood, and they're what the research team targeted for their new work. Disclaimer: Not even a prototype As the researchers themselves put it, this "is not yet a complete, clinically viable system." To begin with, it has only been used in a single individual, so we have no idea how well it might work for others. The simplified alphabet used here doesn't contain any digits, capital letters, or most forms of punctuation. And the behavior of the implants changes over time, perhaps because of minor shifts relative to the neurons they read or the build-up of scar tissue, so the system had to be recalibrated regularly—at least once per week to maintain a tolerable error rate read the research at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03506-2 related code : https://github.com/fwillett/handwritingBCI read the article in its complete and unedited form at https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/neural-implant-lets-paralyzed-person-type-by-imagining-writing/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, rapid and accurate triage of patients at the emergency department is critical to inform decision-making. We propose a data-driven approach for automatic prediction of deterioration risk using a deep neural network that learns from chest X-ray images and a gradient boosting model that learns from routine clinical variables. Our AI prognosis system, trained using data from 3661 patients, achieves an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.786 (95% CI: 0.745–0.830) when predicting deterioration within 96 hours. The deep neural network extracts informative areas of chest X-ray images to assist clinicians in interpreting the predictions and performs comparably to two radiologists in a reader study. In order to verify performance in a real clinical setting, we silently deployed a preliminary version of the deep neural network at New York University Langone Health during the first wave of the pandemic, which produced accurate predictions in real-time. In summary, our findings demonstrate the potential of the proposed system for assisting front-line physicians in the triage of COVID-19 patients. read the open article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-021-00453-0
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
COVID-19 is impacting people worldwide and is currently a leading cause of death in many countries. Underlying factors, including Social Determinants of Health (SDoH), could contribute to these statistics. Our prior work has explored associations between SDoH and several adverse health outcomes (eg, asthma and obesity). Our findings reinforce the emerging consensus that SDoH factors should be considered when implementing intelligent public health surveillance solutions to inform public health policies and interventions.
Objective: This study sought to redefine the Healthy People 2030’s SDoH taxonomy to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we aim to provide a blueprint and implement a prototype for the Urban Population Health Observatory (UPHO), a web-based platform that integrates classified group-level SDoH indicators to individual- and aggregate-level population health data.
Methods: The process of building the UPHO involves collecting and integrating data from several sources, classifying the collected data into drivers and outcomes, incorporating data science techniques for calculating measurable indicators from the raw variables, and studying the extent to which interventions are identified or developed to mitigate drivers that lead to the undesired outcomes.
Results: We generated and classified the indicators of social determinants of health, which are linked to COVID-19. To display the functionalities of the UPHO platform, we presented a prototype design to demonstrate its features. We provided a use case scenario for 4 different users.
Conclusions: UPHO serves as an apparatus for implementing effective interventions and can be adopted as a global platform for chronic and infectious diseases. The UPHO surveillance platform provides a novel approach and novel insights into immediate and long-term health policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and other future public health crises. The UPHO assists public health organizations and policymakers in their efforts in reducing health disparities, achieving health equity, and improving urban population health.
access the study at https://publichealth.jmir.org/2021/6/e28269/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Contact tracing aims to avoid transmission by isolating, at an early stage, only those individuals who are infectious or potentially infectious, to minimize the societal costs associated with isolation. Considerable resources are therefore directed at improving surveillance capacities to allow efficient and rapid investigation and isolation of cases and their contacts. To enhance tracing capacities, the use of digital technologies has been proposed, leveraging the widespread use of smartphones. Therefore, proximity-sensing applications have been designed and made available to automatically trace contacts, notify users about potential exposure to COVID-19, and invite them to isolate. The efficacy of digital contact tracing against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic is debated: Smartphone penetration is limited in many countries, with low coverage among the elderly, the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Quantifying the impact of digital contact tracing is essential to envision this strategy within a wider response plan against the COVID-19 epidemic. We modeled this intervention together with household isolation assuming a 50% detection of clinical cases. In a scenario of high transmissibility (R = 2.6), we found that household isolation by itself would produce a reduction in peak incidence of 27%, while the inclusion of digital contact tracing could increase this effect by 30% for a reasonably achievable app adoption (~20% of the population) and by 144% for a large-scale app adoption (~60%). At a moderate transmissibility level (R = 1.7), the app would substantially damp transmission (36 to 89% peak incidence reduction for increasing app adoption), bringing the epidemic to manageable levels if adopted by 32% of the population or more. The app-based tracing and household isolation have different effects across settings, the first intervention efficiently preventing transmissions at work that are not well targeted by the second. Moreover, app-based contact tracing also yields a protection for the elderly despite the lower penetration of smartphones in this age category. These results may inform the inclusion of digital contact tracing within a COVID-19 response plan. read the study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/15/eabd8750
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Purdue University engineers have developed a method to transform existing cloth items into battery-free wearables resistant to laundry. These smart clothes are powered wirelessly through a flexible, silk-based coil sewn on the textile. In the near future, all your clothes will become smart. These smart clothes will outperform conventional passive garments, thanks to their miniaturized electronic circuits and sensors, which will allow you to seamlessly communicate with your phone, computer, car and other machines. This smart clothing will not only make you more productive but also check on your health status and even call for help if you suffer an accident. The reason why this smart clothing is not all over your closet yet is that the fabrication of this smart clothing is quite challenging, as clothes need to be periodically washed and electronics despise water. Purdue engineers have developed a new spray/sewing method to transform any conventional cloth items into battery-free wearables that can be cleaned in the washing machine. "By spray-coating smart clothes with highly hydrophobic molecules, we are able to render them repellent to water, oil and mud," said Ramses Martinez, an assistant professor in Purdue's School of Industrial Engineering and in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering in Purdue's College of Engineering. "These smart clothes are almost impossible to stain and can be used underwater and washed in conventional washing machines without damaging the electronic components sewn on their surface." read the study at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2021.106155 read the original and unedited version of the article at https://phys.org/news/2021-06-wearables-future-washable-smart-powered.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
As vaccination programmes are gradually launched by various jurisdictions, post-trial surveillance with real-world evidence is of utter importance for close monitoring of their safety and effectiveness. This paper introduces a vaccine passport concept implemented with blockchain technology. In the following, the methods of contact tracing and vaccine efficacy monitoring with intact personal privacy protection will be discussed. Vaccine passports with health records Data are an indispensable and valuable commodity in dealing with global health crises. The COVID-19 pandemic, a global public health emergency as declared by the WHO on 30 January 2020, has highlighted the importance of health data sharing. Data sharing at the early phase of an outbreak enabled healthcare professionals, researchers and policy makers in mastering information required for formulating strategies. Trusted dissemination channels are primarily government official records, peer-reviewed journals and authorised open online databases. Capitalising on these dissemination channels, governments and global scholars share important information for public health measures, from release of full viral genome sequences, pathological features and clinical phases of COVID-19 presentations, to development of diagnostic tests and potential medications, and potential therapeutic and prophylactic agents,to name but a few. Contact tracing is a vital strategy in finding out potential and hidden cases. A convincing showcase was made by Taiwan, where the authorities have used PCR alongside contact tracing in assessing the COVID-19’s transmission dynamics from the initial 100 confirmed cases This approach has much contributed to Taiwan’s success in keeping its health system intact with less than 900 cases even after a year into the pandemic. Aside from contact tracing for infected patients, daily monitoring among community dwellers could be useful in infection control and resumption of normal social activities. Vaccine passports and digital contact tracing applications (apps) could be widely adopted in recording personal health profiles, contacts, and more importantly vaccination status in later stages. Inevitably, the concept of a vaccine passport led to a heated debate among people from all walks of life over its scientific evidence and ethical concerns. Application of blockchain Data sharing as an infection control measure only works on wide acceptance and adoption among citizens. Invariably, data security and integrity would come to the spotlight regarding data access and sharing issues; apart from data storage infrastructure, non-functional requirements such as availability, confidentiality and integrity are also fundamental to data storage, communication and mobilisation. Availability refers to the organised input of required data. Confidentiality is tantamount to authentic data access and usage authorisation, while data integrity ensures data safety against breaches. Electronic health records and personal health records account for an immense portion of data in this digital era, with a 46% growth in 5 years. Nevertheless, solutions for data protection remain limited, primarily stored via content management system with encryption, in designated host servers. According to the Department of Health and Human Services of the USA, at least 3054 healthcare data infringements were observed from 2009 to 2019, involving leakage of 230 954 151 electronic medical records.A solution for data sharing with robust privacy protection is of paramount importance as well as urgently needed, and blockchain technology seems to be a qualified candidate. Vaccine passport, as a form of portable health data, with adoption of blockchain technology, can be a promising tool for health monitoring and alerts while protecting personal privacy. more at https://innovations.bmj.com/content/7/2/337
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Adherence to treatment is critical for successful treatment outcomes. Although factors influencing antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence vary, young adults are less likely to adhere owing to psychosocial issues such as stigma, ART-related side effects, and a lack of access to treatment. The Call for Life Uganda (CFLU) mobile health (mHealth) tool is a mobile phone–based technology that provides text messages or interactive voice response functionalities through a web interface and offers 4 modules of support.
Objective: This study aims to describe the acceptability and feasibility of a mobile phone support tool to promote adherence to ART among young adults in a randomized controlled trial.
Methods: An exploratory qualitative design with a phenomenological approach at 2 study sites was used. A total of 17 purposively selected young adults with HIV infection who had used the mHealth tool CFLU from 2 clinics were included. In total, 11 in-depth interviews and 1 focus group discussion were conducted to examine the following topics: experience with the CFLU tool (benefits and challenges), components of the tool, the efficiency of the system (level of comfort, ease, or difficulty in using the system), how CFLU resolved adherence challenges, and suggestions to improve CFLU. Participants belonged to 4 categories of interest: young adults on ART for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, young adults switching to or on the second-line ART, positive partners in an HIV-discordant relationship, and young adults initiating the first-line ART. All young adults had 12 months of daily experience using the tool. Data were analyzed using NVivo version 11 software (QSR International Limited) based on a thematic approach.
Results: The CFLU mHealth tool was perceived as an acceptable intervention;
young adults reported improvement in medication adherence, strengthened clinician-patient relationships, and increased health knowledge from health tips. Appointment reminders and symptom reporting were singled out as beneficial and helped to address the problems of forgetfulness and stigma-related issues. HIV-related stigma was reported by a few young people. Participants requested extra support for scaling up CFLU to make it more youth friendly. Improving the tool to reduce technical issues, including network outages and a period of software failure, was suggested. They suggested that in addition to digital solutions, other support, including the promotion of peer support meetings and the establishment of a designated space and staff members for youth, was also important.
Conclusions: This mHealth tool was an acceptable and feasible strategy for improving ART adherence and retention among young adults in resource-limited settings.
read the entire study at https://mhealth.jmir.org/2021/6/e17418/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under consideration is a mobile phone app that traces the close contacts of those infected with COVID-19. Recent research has demonstrated the theoretical effectiveness of this solution in different disease settings. However, concerns have been raised about such apps because of the potential privacy implications. This could limit the acceptability of app-based contact tracing in the general population. As the effectiveness of this approach increases strongly with app uptake, it is crucial to understand public support for this intervention. Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the user acceptability of a contact-tracing app in five countries hit by the pandemic.
Methods: We conducted a largescale, multicountry study (N=5995) to measure public support for the digital contact tracing of COVID-19 infections.
We ran anonymous online surveys in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States and measured intentions to use a contact-tracing app across different installation regimes (voluntary installation vs automatic installation by mobile phone providers) and studied how these intentions vary across individuals and countries.
Results: We found strong support for the app under both regimes, in all countries, across all subgroups of the population, and irrespective of regional-level COVID-19 mortality rates.
We investigated the main factors that may hinder or facilitate uptake and found that concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, together with a lack of trust in the government, are the main barriers to adoption.
Conclusions:
Epidemiological evidence shows that app-based contact tracing can suppress the spread of COVID-19 if a high enough proportion of the population uses the app and that it can still reduce the number of infections if uptake is moderate. Our findings show that the willingness to install the app is very high. The available evidence suggests that app-based contact tracing may be a viable approach to control the diffusion of COVID-19. read the study at https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/8/e19857
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest global health challenges of our time. Wastewater treatment plants are a true breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant germs, as this is where pathogens and antibiotic residues come together. The resistant bacterial strains then re-enter the environment via the treated water and can spread further. Scientists at the University of Naples Federico II have now developed a nanomaterial to combat this problem. Supported by instrument scientist Dr. Judith Houston from Forschungszentrum Jülich (and meanwhile at the European Spallation Neutron Source ESS in Sweden), they have analyzed it at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum. The material is a hybrid of humic acid and titanium dioxide (TiO2). Humic acids (HAs), which occur naturally in humus soils, have useful properties that can counteract water pollution: on the one hand, they have an antibacterial effect, and on the other hand, they can bind small molecules such as antibiotics. Highlights • In situ hydrothermal route is a versatile approach to realize multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials for biowaste valorization.
• The combination at molecular scale of HAs and TiO2 improves the.•OH generation even under visible light;
• Hybrid HA-NDL/TiO2 nanomaterials exert a ROS-mediated antibacterial activity.
• Surface and colloidal properties make the hybrid nanomaterials as valid sequestering agents against antibiotics.
• A high and selective activity is shown in sequestering amoxicillin and tetracycline contaminants. image © Wenzel Schuermann / TU Muenchen read the study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935120314596 read the entire article/press release at the MLZ website at https://mlz-garching.de/englisch/news-und-press/news-articles/nanomaterial-sagt-resistenten-bakterien-den-kampf-an.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Google's AI-powered tool that will be available later this year helps anyone identify skin conditions using their phone’s camera. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help clinicians care for patients and treat disease — from improving the screening process for breast cancer to helping detect tuberculosis more efficiently. When we combine these advances in AI with other technologies, like smartphone cameras, we can unlock new ways for people to stay better informed about their health, too. Google's AI-powered dermatology assist tool is a web-based application that they hope to launch as a pilot later this year, to make it easier to figure out what might be going on with their skin. Once the user launchs the tool, simply use their phone’s camera to take three images of the skin, hair or nail concern from different angles. They are then asked questions about their skin type, how long they’ve had the issue and other symptoms that help the tool narrow down the possibilities. The AI model analyzes this information and draws from its knowledge of 288 conditions to give the user a list of possible matching conditions that they can then research further. For each matching condition, the tool will show dermatologist-reviewed information and answers to commonly asked questions, along with similar matching images from the web. The tool is not intended to provide a diagnosis nor be a substitute for medical advice as many conditions require clinician review, in-person examination, or additional testing like a biopsy. Rather Google hopes it gives users access to authoritative information so they can make a more informed decision about their next step. Developing an AI model that assesses issues for all skin types Google's tool is the culmination of over three years of machine learning research and product development. To date, Google has published several peer-reviewed papers that validate their AI model and they claim more are in the works. Recently, the AI model that powers the tool successfully passed clinical validation, and the tool has been CE marked as a Class I medical device in the EU. more at https://blog.google/technology/health/ai-dermatology-preview-io-2021/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Scientists have fabricated a device that can mimic human brain cognitive actions and is more efficient than conventional techniques in emulating artificial intelligence, thus enhancing the computational speed and power consumption efficiency. Artificial intelligence is now a part of our daily lives, starting from email filters and smart replies in communication to helping battle the Covid-19 pandemic. But AI can do much more such as facilitate self-driving autonomous vehicles, augmented reality for healthcare, drug discovery, big data handling, real-time pattern/image recognition, solving real-world problems, and so on. These can be realised with the help of a neuromorphic device which can mimic the human brain synapse to bring about brain-inspired efficient computing ability. The human brain comprises of nearly a hundred billion neurons consisting of axons and dendrites. These neurons massively interconnect with each other via axons and dendrites, forming colossal junctions called synapse. This complex bio-neural network is believed to give rise to superior cognitive abilities. Software-based artificial neural networks (ANN) can be seen defeating humans in games or helping handle the Covid-19 situation. However, the power-hungry (in megawatts) von Neumann computer architecture slows down ANNs performance due to the available serial processing while the brain does the job via parallel processing consuming just 20 W. It is estimated that the brain consumes 20% of the total body energy. From the calory conversion, it amounts to 20 watts. While the conventional computing platforms consume megawatts, i.e., 1 million watts of energy, to mimic basic human cognition. To overcome this bottleneck, a hardware-based solution involves an artificial synaptic device that, unlike transistors, could emulate the functions of human brain synapse. Scientists had long been trying to develop a synaptic device that can mimic complex psychological behaviors without the aid of external supporting (CMOS) circuits. To address this challenge, Scientists from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, devised a novel approach of fabricating an artificial synaptic network (ASN) resembling the biological neural network via a simple self-forming method (the device structure is formed by itself while heating). This work has been recently published in the journal ‘Materials Horizons’. “Nature has had an incredible amount of time and diversity to engineer ever new forms and functions through evolution. Learning and emulating new processes, technologies, materials and devices from the nature and biology are the important pathways to the significant advances of the future which will increasingly integrate the worlds of the living with the man-made technologies,” said Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST. read the original unedited post at https://www.indianext.co.in/2021/06/scientists-develop-efficient-artificial-synaptic-network-that-mimics-human-brain/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
If there’s one dialogue that’s been growing louder across the healthcare landscape, it’s the consumerization of healthcare. Market trends are undeniably steering the healthcare experience into a new paradigm where patients are seizing control. Yet this new direction is not always beneficial for patients or providers. Just as consumer-driven industries like Uber and Netflix offer quick and seamless digital transactions, many patients want greater convenience and speed from care delivery. Many are also seeking more cost-effective options, thanks to climbing medical debt and high-deductible insurance plans. They’re less willing to tolerate care delays and inefficiencies; many will leave a poor online review after a frustrating appointment. These are all understandable goals and reactions. But as patients climb into the driver’s seat of healthcare, they’re not always given a roadmap to their intended destination. As they navigate their options, some are running up against four dynamics: 1. Dr. Google In our fast-paced world, many patients don’t want to wait weeks for an appointment or take time off from work to bring their child to the pediatrician. Instead they take out their smartphone and look up symptoms to get a quick and theoretical diagnosis. Patients can view photographs of lesions, read checklists of cancer symptoms and lurk on forums where people describe surgery experiences – and encourage each other to self-diagnose.
2. Retail Clinics
Retail clinics like CVS and Walgreens have exploded in popularity – and the market is expected to surpass $8 billion USD by 2028. Patients who feel they’re too busy or too peripatetic to maintain a consistent PCP relationship often prefer the extended hours and easy access of these clinics.
3. Cost Avoidance
Patients are paying higher and higher coinsurances, deductibles and copays – and they’re sick of it. They’re annoyed by a hospital’s inability to give them an accurate procedure cost in advance; many are stuck with “surprise” invoices after checking into a network hospital and receiving care from an out-of-network doctor.
4. Application Chaos
As applications and portals take over the Internet, many healthcare systems have turned a great idea into patient confusion. Even patients with moderate care needs may find themselves managing an overwhelming collection of healthcare apps for their OB/GYN practice, dentist, dermatologist, PCP, various hospital online payment portals, lab result repositories and data from their wearables.
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
A Recent Harris Poll Survey on behalf of NextGen Healthcare Confirms Patients Seek the Convenience of Self Service and Option to See Providers Virtually The survey was conducted online and the results are based on the inputs gathered from 2,000 U.S. adults, including 1,733 who typically see a healthcare provider annually (“patients”). The survey results generated insights into patient experiences and preferences related to online healthcare tools. Telehealth is here to stay. - 84 % of U.S. patients who received telehealth services since March 2020 plan to continue using telehealth appointments in the future citing reasons such as
- convenience (43 %)
- or to avoid being around people who are ill (39 %).
- More than half of U.S. patients (57 %) say they would be more likely to get follow-up medical care if telehealth appointments were an option.
- 48 % patients indicate they would switch to a different healthcare provider if their current provider did not offer telehealth appointments.WOW!
- 69 % patients have seen a healthcare provider via telehealth since the COVID-19 pandemic began,
- 46 % - primary care physician (PCP)
- 19 % - mental healthcare provider.
- 15% - women’s health provider
- 9% ophthalmologist
- 7% orthopedist
Online access is a must. 58 percent patients would like to have more online access to their healthcare provider. Age plays a role in this: Patients from 18-54 are significantly more likely than patients 55 and older to say they would like to have more online access to their healthcare provider (68 percent vs. 43 percent). Topping the list of most important online services patients would look for if seeking a new provider are: - online appointment scheduling (49 percent)
- ability to check-in or complete health forms/appointment paperwork online before an appointment (49 percent)
- online prescription management (48 percent)
- online medical records access (47 percent)
John Beck, chief solutions officer for NextGen Healthcare says in the release - “These survey results confirmed that patients’ overall expectations for healthcare have shifted permanently. Integrated healthcare technology is good for the patient and good for the practice.” read the original release at https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210520005327/en/National-Survey-Shows-Online-Access-and-Telehealth-are-Keys-to-Patient-Loyalty
|
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
More than 100 million HIV tests are performed around the world annually, meaning even a small improvement in quality assurance could impact the lives of millions of people by reducing the risk of false positives and negatives. Academics from the London Center for Nanotechnology at UCL and AHRI used deep learning (artificial intelligence/AI) algorithms to improve health workers' ability to diagnose HIV using lateral flow tests in rural South Africa. Their findings, published today in Nature Medicine, involve the first and largest study of field-acquired HIV test results, which have applied machine learning (AI) to help classify them as positive or negative. By harnessing the potential of mobile phone sensors, cameras, processing power and data sharing capabilities, the team developed an app that can read test results from an image taken by end users on a mobile device. It may also be able to report results to public health systems for better data collection and ongoing care. read the study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01384-9 read more at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-ai-app-hiv-accurately.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
The IMPACT (vIrtual-first Medical PrActice CollaboraTion) initiative, developed by the American Telemedicine Association and the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), has unveiled a formal definition for virtual first care (V1C), along with some vignettes from providers who are only using virtual platforms to deliver emergency, respiratory, cardiac and sleep care. As set forth on the IMPACT website, virtual first care is defined as “medical care for individuals or a community accessed through digital interactions where possible, guided by a clinician, and integrated into a person’s everyday life.” The Boston-based initiative was borne out of the massive shift to telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic, and a resulting transition to hybrid care as COVID-19 eases off. In that landscape, some providers are thinking of either launching virtual-only care or transitioning their in-person services to virtual platforms. “Virtual first care is digital health in practice,” IMPACT Co-Founder Don Jones, a former Qualcomm Life executive and former chief digital officer at the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said in the press release. “IMPACT uniquely convenes organizations from across the ecosystem that view virtual first care as their primary mission. Members of IMPACT are already demonstrating patient and provider satisfaction, as well as pathways to cost savings and improved outcomes.” “With a clear definition for the field, we have paved the way for more fit-for-purpose reimbursement models and opportunities to demonstrate the value of virtual first in practice,” he added. read more at https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/mhealth-collaborative-unveils-new-definition-resources-for-virtual-first-care
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Researchers have figured out a way to use images from a smartphone to identify potentially harmful bacteria on the skin and in the mouth. A new method that uses smartphone-derived images can identify potentially harmful bacteria on the skin and in the mouth, research shows. The approach can visually identify microbes on skin contributing to acne and slow wound healing, as well as bacteria in the oral cavity that can cause gingivitis and dental plaques. Researchers combined a smartphone-case modification with image-processing methods to illuminate bacteria on images taken by a conventional smartphone camera. This approach yielded a relatively low-cost and quick method that could be used at home. The team augmented a smartphone camera’s capabilities by attaching a small 3D-printed ring containing 10 LED black lights around a smartphone case’s camera opening. The researchers used the LED-augmented smartphone to take images of the oral cavity and skin on the face of two research subjects. The LED lights ‘excite’ a class of bacteria-derived molecules called porphyrins, causing them to emit a red fluorescent signal that the smartphone camera can then pick up Other components in the image—such as proteins or oily molecules our bodies produce, as well as skin, teeth, and gums—won’t glow red under LED. They’ll fluoresce in other colors. The LED illumination gave the team enough visual information to computationally “convert” the RGB colors from the smartphone-derived images into other wavelengths in the visual spectrum. This generates a “pseudo-multispectral” image consisting of 15 different sections of the visual spectrum—rather than the three in the original RGB image. Obtaining this visual information up front would have required expensive and cumbersome lights, rather than using the relatively inexpensive LED black lights With their greater degree of visual discrimination, the pseudo-multispectral images clearly resolved porphyrin clusters on the skin and within the oral cavity. In addition, though they tailored this method to show porphyrin, researchers could modify the image-analysis pipeline to detect other bacterial signatures that also fluoresce under LED. read the study at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2021.106546 read the original unedited article at https://www.futurity.org/smartphone-images-skin-mouth-bacteria-2581642/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Patient travel history can be crucial in evaluating evolving infectious disease events. Such information can be challenging to acquire in electronic health records, as it is often available only in unstructured text.
Objective: This study aims to assess the feasibility of annotating and automatically extracting travel history mentions from unstructured clinical documents in the Department of Veterans Affairs across disparate health care facilities and among millions of patients. Information about travel exposure augments existing surveillance applications for increased preparedness in responding quickly to public health threats.
Methods: Clinical documents related to arboviral disease were annotated following selection using a semiautomated bootstrapping process. Using annotated instances as training data, models were developed to extract from unstructured clinical text any mention of affirmed travel locations outside of the continental United States. Automated text processing models were evaluated, involving machine learning and neural language models for extraction accuracy.
Results: Among 4584 annotated instances, 2659 (58%) contained an affirmed mention of travel history, while 347 (7.6%) were negated. Interannotator agreement resulted in a document-level Cohen kappa of 0.776. Automated text processing accuracy (F1 85.6, 95% CI 82.5-87.9) and computational burden were acceptable such that the system can provide a rapid screen for public health events.
Conclusions: Automated extraction of patient travel history from clinical documents is feasible for enhanced passive surveillance public health systems.
Without such a system, it would usually be necessary to manually review charts to identify recent travel or lack of travel, use an electronic health record that enforces travel history documentation, or ignore this potential source of information altogether. The development of this tool was initially motivated by emergent arboviral diseases. More recently, this system was used in the early phases of response to COVID-19 in the United States, although its utility was limited to a relatively brief window due to the rapid domestic spread of the virus. Such systems may aid future efforts to prevent and contain the spread of infectious diseases. read the study at https://publichealth.jmir.org/2021/3/e26719
Pandemic SEIR and SEIRV modelling software and infrastructure for the Corona SARS-COV-2 COVID-19 disease with data from Johns-Hopkins-University CSSE, Robert Koch-Institute and vaccination data from Our World In Data. The SARS-COV-2 pandemic has been affecting our lives for months. The effectiveness of measures against the pandemic can be tested and predicted by using epidemiological models. The Corona SEIR Workbench uses a SEIR model and combines a graphical output of the results with a simple parameter input for the model. Modelled data can be compared country by country with the SARS-COV-2 infection data of the Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, the R₀ values of the Robert Koch Institute can be displayed for Germany. Vaccination data is used from Our World In Data.
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Wearables that have weaved their way into everyday life include smart watches and wireless earphones, while in the healthcare setting, common devices include wearable injectors, electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring patches, listening aids, and more. A major pain point facing the use of these wearables is the issue of keeping these devices properly and conveniently powered. As the number of wearables one uses increases, the need to charge multiple batteries rises in tandem, consuming huge amounts of electricity. A research team, led by Associate Professor Jerald Yoo from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the N.1 Institute for Health at the National University of Singapore (NUS), has developed a technology that enables a single device, such as a mobile phone placed in the pocket, to wirelessly power other wearable devices on a user's body, using the human body as a medium for power transmission. The team's novel system has an added advantage—it can harvest unused energy from electronics in a typical home or office environment to power the wearables. The NUS team designed a receiver and transmitter system that uses the human body as a medium for power transmission and energy harvesting. Each receiver and transmitter contains a chip that is used as a springboard to extend coverage over the entire body. A user just needs to place the transmitter on a single power source, such as the smart watch on a user's wrist, while multiple receivers can be placed anywhere on the person's body. The system then harnesses energy from the source to power multiple wearables on the user's body via a process termed as body-coupled power transmission. In this way, the user will only need to charge one device, and the rest of the gadgets that are worn can simultaneously be powered up from that single source. The team's experiments showed that their system allows a single power source that is fully charged to power up to 10 wearable devices on the body, for a duration of over 10 hours. As a complementary source of power, the NUS team also looked into harvesting energy from the environment. Their research found that typical office and home environments have parasitic electromagnetic (EM) waves that people are exposed to all the time, for instance, from a running laptop. The team's novel receiver scavenges the EM waves from the ambient environment, and through a process referred to as body-coupled powering, the human body is able to harvest this energy to power the wearable devices, regardless of their locations around the body. This paves the way for smaller, battery-free wearables read the paper in Nature at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00592-y read the original unedited article https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-approach-wirelessly-power-wearable-devices.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
We discuss the concept of a participatory digital contact notification approach to assist tracing of contacts who are exposed to confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19); The core functionality of our concept is to provide a usable, labor-saving tool for contact tracing by confirmed cases themselves the approach is simple and affordable for countries with limited access to health care resources and advanced technology. The proposed tool serves as a supplemental contract tracing approach to counteract the shortage of health care staff while providing privacy protection for both cases and contacts. - This tool can be deployed on the internet or as a plugin for a smartphone app.
- Confirmed cases with COVID-19 can use this tool to provide contact information (either email addresses or mobile phone numbers) of close contacts.
- The system will then automatically send a message to the contacts informing them of their contact status, what this status means, the actions that should follow (eg, self-quarantine, respiratory hygiene/cough etiquette), and advice for receiving early care if they develop symptoms.
- The name of the sender of the notification message by email or mobile phone can be anonymous or not.
- The message received by the contact contains no disease information but contains a security code for the contact to log on the platform to retrieve the information.
Conclusion The successful application of this tool relies heavily on public social responsibility and credibility, and it remains to be seen if the public would adopt such a tool and what mechanisms are required to prevent misuse. This is a simple tool that does not require complicated computer techniques despite strict user privacy protection design with respect to countries and regions. Additionally, this tool can help avoid coercive surveillance, facilitate the allocation of health resources, and prioritize clinical service for patients with COVID-19. Information obtained from the platform can also increase our understanding of the epidemiology of COVID-19. read this concept paper at https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/6/e20369
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Researchers investigating the benefits of 3D printing technology found it can deliver significant improvements to the running of hospitals. The research, which compared the drawbacks and advantages of using 3D printing technology in hospitals, has been published in the International Journal of Operations and Production Management. The study revealed that introducing such technology into hospitals could help alleviate many of the strains the UK healthcare system and healthcare systems worldwide face. Boosting surgery success rates - 3D printing makes it possible for surgical teams to print 3D models based on an individual patient’s surgical needs, providing more detailed and exact information for the surgeon to plan and practice the surgery, minimising the risk of error or unexpected complications. - the use of 3D printed anatomical models was useful when communicating the details of the surgery with the patient, helping to increase their confidence in the procedure. Speeding up patient recovery time - significant reduction in post-surgery complications, patient recovery times and the need for subsequent hospital appointments or treatments. Speeding up procedures - provide surgeons with custom-built tools for each procedure, with the findings revealing that surgeries with durations of four to eight hours were reduced by 1.5 to 2.5 hours when patient-specific instruments were used. - could also make surgeries less invasive (for example, removing less bone or tissue) - result in less associated risks for the patient (for example, by requiring less anaesthesia). Real-life training opportunities - enables trainee surgeons to familiarise themselves with the steps to take in complex surgeries by practicing their skills on examples that accurately replicate real patient problems, and with greater variety. Careful consideration required Despite the research showing strong and clear benefits of using 3D printing, Dr Chaudhuri and his fellow researchers urge careful consideration for the financial costs. 3D printing is a significant financial investment for hospitals to make. In order to determine whether such an investment is worthwhile, the researchers have also developed a framework to aid hospital decision-makers in determining the return on investment for their particular institution. read the study at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344956611_Accepted_for_publication_in_International_Journal_of_Operations_and_Production_Management_Should_hospitals_invest_in_customised_on-demand_3D_printing_for_surgeries read more at https://www.healtheuropa.eu/3d-printing-technology-boosts-hospital-efficiency-and-eases-pressures/108544/
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Antibiotic resistance is a significant public health challenge, caused by changes in bacterial cells that allow them to survive drugs that are designed to kill them. Resistance often occurs through new mutations in bacteria that arise during the treatment of an infection. Understanding how this resistance emerges and spreads through bacterial populations is important to preventing treatment failure. Scientists have developed a mathematical model that predicts how the number and effects of bacterial mutations leading to drug resistance will influence the success of antibiotic treatments. Their model, described in the journal eLife, provides new insights on the emergence of drug resistance in clinical settings and hints at how to design novel treatment strategies that help avoid this resistance occurring. "Mathematical models are a crucial tool for exploring the outcome of drug treatment and assessing the risk of the evolution of antibiotic resistance," explains first author Claudia Igler, Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. "These models usually consider a single mutation, which leads to full drug resistance, but multiple mutations that increase antibiotic resistance in bacteria can occur. So there are some mutations that lead to a high level of resistance individually, and some that provide a small level of resistance individually but can accumulate to provide high-level resistance." "Our work provides a crucial step in understanding the emergence of antibiotic resistance in clinically relevant treatment settings," says senior author Roland Regoes, Group Leader at ETH Zurich. "Together, our findings highlight the importance of measuring the level of antibiotic resistance granted by single mutations to help inform effective antimicrobial treatment strategies." read the study paper at https://elifesciences.org/articles/64116 read the original unedited article at https://phys.org/news/2021-05-mathematical-effect-bacterial-mutations-antibiotic.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Data encoded on DNA could last 500 years! Check out a new DNA decoder that can read data at 330 gigabits per square centimeter Years ago, the world marveled as it recognized that more human information was created on the internet than had been written in thousands of years of human history. But with the information age growing more complex by the day, we may have to look at new ways of storing information, and it turns out the DNA we're made of might hold the key to the ultimate organic hard drive. A team of scientists has developed a new way of storing data, using pegs and pegboards composed of DNA, which can be retrieved via microscope, in a molecular variant of the traditional Lite-Brite, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications. The prototype can store information in DNA strands with a 10-nanometer space between them. This distance is less than one-thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, and roughly one-hundredth the size of a living bacterium. The team tested a digital nucleic acid memory (dNAM) with the storage of a simple statement: "Data is in our DNA/n." Earlier attempts to retrieve data stored in DNA called for DNA sequencing, which involves reading the genetic code of DNA strands — which is a critical tool in biology and medicine, but not very efficient for DNA memory. Data stored on DNA strands can last for 500 years Using a microscope, the team imaged hundreds of thousands of DNA pegs in one recording, allowing for an error-correction algorithm to retrieve all data. Once all of the bits were organized via algorithms, the prototype DNA decoder could read data at 330 gigabits per square centimeter. While this technology likely won't show up in smartphones or laptops in the near future, DNA storage has incredible potential for archival use. In case you missed it, DNA evolved to store unconscionable amounts of data. If we knew how, our genes could store all of the emails, tweets, songs, photos, films, and books that ever existed in a DNA volume the size of a jewelry box. read the original version of this interesting article at https://interestingengineering.com/dna-could-store-every-tweet-movie-book-and-more-in-a-jewelry-box-sized-device
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
Neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy have had some treatment success with deep brain stimulation, but those require surgical device implantation. A multidisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new brain stimulation technique using focused ultrasound that is able to turn specific types of neurons in the brain on and off and precisely control motor activity without surgical device implantation. The team, led by Hong Chen, is the first to provide direct evidence showing noninvasive, cell-type-specific activation of neurons in the brain of mammal by combining ultrasound-induced heating effect and genetics, which they have named sonothermogenetics. It is also the first work to show that the ultrasound- genetics combination can robustly control behavior by stimulating a specific target deep in the brain. Results of the three years of research, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health's BRAIN Initiative, were published online in Brain Stimulation May 11, 2021. "Our work provided evidence that sonothermogenetics evokes behavioral responses in freely moving mice while targeting a deep brain site," Chen said. "Sonothermogenetics has the potential to transform our approaches for neuroscience research and uncover new methods to understand and treat human brain disorders." more at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-tool-deep-brain-neurons-combining.html
|
|
Scooped by
nrip
|
What is photonics? In short, photonics is the scientific study and technological harnessing of light. However, it is important to note that the term "photonics" is something of a nebulous one. That being said, it is often used today to refer to a set of emerging technologies that deal with various aspects of light. These include technologies used to store, transfer, or manipulate information, but can also be used to include methods of harvesting energy from light and/or converting it to electricity. To put it another way, photonics, in the technological sense, refers to devices that use photons to send, receive, and process information similar to modern-day electronics. Today, one of the major applications of photonics, specifically integrated photonics, is in high-performance computing. Specific examples would be in the servers in large data server farms used by large tech companies like Google or Amazon. Beyond computing, photonics has applications in many other fields from medical sciences to energy production. In medical sciences, for example, photonics is used in a variety of ways including in surgery (such as eye surgery), tattoo removal, and surgical endoscopy. In the future, optical integrated circuits may well lead to the development of smaller, more compact, biosensors and other implantable medical devices freed from the limitation of electronics. more at https://interestingengineering.com/photonics-a-story-of-our-quest-to-harness-the-power-of-light
|
