Author: Healthcare Propulsion Staff

The randomized trial recruited adults undergoing image-guided lung or bone biopsy or abscess drainage procedures. Subjects were randomized to receive either fentanyl/midazolam or ketamine/midazolam, which was administered by interventional radiologists. Procedures were performed using ultrasound, computed tomography, CT fluoroscopy or combined CT-US guidance. Intraprocedural pain was measured on a 10-point scale, while patients’ experience was assessed via a questionnaire. Among 264 randomized procedures (132 per group) in 260 participants, ketamine resulted in lower maximum intraprocedural pain than fentanyl (at an average difference of -1.4 points). Pain scores greater than 4 occurred less frequently with ketamine (2.3% vs. 17%). Oxygen desaturation below…

Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. Good morning. I didn’t have space to mention it yesterday, but can you believe Nathan Fielder made an Elizabeth Holmes documentary? Variety called it shameless and fascinating. I may need to see for myself.  Can AI fix health care? It depends who you ask! But in the current chaos of emergency rooms, the technology has not yet changed the status quo, STAT’s Brittany Trang reports. While AI documentation may help a physician focus on the patient in front of them and figure…

Many people are familiar with melatonin, a hormone that helps ready the body for sleep. But there’s another, lesser-known chemical in the brain, called orexin, that tips the scale in the other direction: waking the body up.In 1999, two scientists independently uncovered the function of orexin and published papers about it. Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, a molecular biologist and physician now at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, came across orexin while studying the interaction of receptors and chemicals in the brain. Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, now the director of the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy, homed in on orexin while studying narcoleptic…

A new study found that a healthy checkout ordinance implemented in Berkeley, Calif. supermarkets, drug stores, and mass-market retailers in 2021 was linked to notable decreases in soda sales overall and small-package candy in supermarkets, but greater enforcement of such policies is essential for sustained and meaningful public health benefit. In March 2021, Berkeley, Calif. became the first city in the world to ban the display of sugary beverages and snacks in store checkout lanes, where candy, chocolate, and soda are commonly placed to encourage impulse buying while shoppers are in line. A new study led by researchers at Boston…

A lot of the world today is geared towards self-service and convenience for consumers. Self-checkout lanes in grocery stores, the many food and grocery delivery options, streaming services, etc. It is very geared to let consumers pick what they want, when they want it, and often brings it to wherever they are. Healthcare is no exception to this. We reached out to our wonderful Healthcare IT Today Community to ask — how are health IT platforms enabling direct-to-consumer care models such as virtual visits, digital front doors, and on-demand services? The following are their answers. Jason Griffin, Managing Director of…

A multiethnic cohort study separated total, caffeinated, and decaffeinated coffee intake and tracked long-term survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis, revealing a more complex picture than coffee alone. Study: Association of coffee intake with risk of all-cause and colorectal cancer-specific mortality among individuals with colorectal cancer in the Multiethnic Cohort Study. Image Credit: crystal light / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, researchers examined associations between coffee consumption and the risks of all-cause mortality (ACM) and colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality among people with CRC. CRC is the second leading cause of cancer death in the…

UCI Health, the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine, is conducting a first-in-human, phase 1 clinical trial using laser light to target localized but inoperable pancreatic tumors to help patients become cancer free. The UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only two U.S. cancer centers testing the potential breakthrough treatment using vascular targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP), which was developed by the Israel-based biotechnology company, ImPact Biotech. “We use the light-sensitive drug padeliporfin to destroy pancreatic tumors encasing major arteries in the abdomen – once the vessels are clear of tumors, patients can undergo what can…

Chemotherapy, which saves the lives of many children with cancer, causes previously unknown DNA alterations in the liver and leaves genetic footprints in other healthy cells as well. These findings could potentially explain the higher risk of health problems later in life. Chemotherapy damages the DNA of cancer cells, leading to cell death. However, its effect on the healthy cells that survive treatment have long been difficult to study. Previous methods lacked the sensitivity needed to detect DNA changes in individual cells. Researchers have therefore also had limited ability to investigate whether these changes contribute to the health problems that…

Sentara Health embedded a predictive risk model into Epic and redesigned nursing workflows, reducing hospital-onset MRSA bacteremia by about 45%, according to Healthcare IT News. Healthcare IT News also reported that DaVita’s CIO said embedding AI-powered insights into clinical workflows, not simply collecting more data, is helping clinicians coordinate care. Together, the examples point to ROI when insights are placed in clinical workflows.According to Healthcare IT News, Sentara embedded a predictive risk model into Epic and redesigned nursing workflows, reducing hospital-onset MRSA bacteremia by about 45%.For operators who live and die by throughput, staffing and quality metrics, the detail that…

A new Ontario-wide study reveals that common medications, from statins to iron supplements, are quietly setting off prescribing cascades that leave older adults unknowingly taking drugs to treat side effects of other drugs. The research, published in BMJ and led by Dr. Paula Rochon, Director of Research at the Weston and O’Born Centre for Mature Women’s Health at Sinai Health in Toronto, has revealed that certain drug combinations are a common but unrecognized contributor to drug related harm at the population level and add unnecessary costs to the healthcare system.  A potentially inappropriate prescribing cascade (PIPC) happens when a medication’s…