Mothers Produce Less Aggressive Sons With Altered Immunity When There Is A Threat Of Disease During Pregnancy
Maternal experience before and during pregnancy is known to play a key role in offspring development. However, the influence of social cues about disease in the maternal environment has not been explored. Here we show that an indirect threat of disease during pregnancy has dramatic consequences for offspring behaviour and health.
Pregnant mice housed near non-contagious diseased neighbours produced sons which showed altered immunity and less aggression as adults.
We suggest that ambient information regarding disease is used adaptively to maximise offspring survival and reproductive success in a challenging environment.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Why Are (the Best) Women So Good At Chess? Participation Rates And Gender Differences In Intellectual Domains
The lack of women at the top level of intellectually demanding activities like science and chess is often attributed to their inferior cognitive abilities.
We show in chess that although the best men are better than the best women, the difference is little more than would be expected given the much greater number of men who play.
The simple but often overlooked statistical fact is that the best performers in a large group are likely to be better than the best performers in a smaller one. This may explain why women are underrepresented at the top of other activities where far fewer of them compete.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Nothing To Sneeze At: Real-time Pollen Forecasts – Journal Analytical Chemistry
Researchers in Germany are reporting an advance toward development of technology that could make life easier for millions of people allergic to plant pollen. It could underpin the first automated, real-time systems for identifying specific kinds of allergy-inducing plant pollen circulating in the air. Their study is in the current issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal.
In the study, Janina Kneipp and colleagues explain that current pollen counts and allergy warnings are based on visual identification of the specific kind of pollen by examining pollen grains under a microscope. That procedure takes time, making it impossible for allergy-sufferers to know the kinds of pollen that are airborne on an hour-by-hour basis.
The researchers describe using a common laboratory procedure to identify chemical structures in pollen grains that distinguish oak and maple pollen, for instance, from maple and other kids. They obtained these chemical “signatures” for 15 different kinds of tree pollen with the procedure, termed Raman spectroscopy. The researchers say that it could provide the basis for a real-time pollen detection and warning system to help allergy sufferers.
ARTICLE
“Chemical Characterization and Classification of Pollen”
Click here to view article online
American Chemical Society (ACS)
The American Chemical Society is a congressionally chartered independent membership organization which represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry.
American Chemical Society
Change.Gov Offers Opportunity For Public Input, USA
President-elect Obama’s internet office, Change.Gov, provides various
opportunities for public input on issues of concern as well as ways to stay
informed about the latest news and announcements.
The website offers a welcome
opportunity to raise the profile of mental health issues and the need to
integrate mental health within healthcare. We encourage you to add your
comments to help inform and guide the new Administration. You can do so at
http://change.gov/agenda/health_care_agenda
Source
http://www.democracyinaction.org
Key Senators Commit To Healthcare Reform, USA
The chairs of the two Senate committees with jurisdiction over health care
reform, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy
(D-MA) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), have already signaled
that healthcare reform will be a priority for them. Senator Kennedy plans on
having reform legislation drafted by Inauguration Day (January 20), with staff
engaging in discussions with diverse stakeholder groups. Senator Baucus
released on November 12th a white paper outlining his vision for policy in on
areas of coverage, costs and quality. Titled A Call to Action: Health Reform
2009, Senator Baucus’ paper is available
here.
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has also expressed his commitment to
comprehensive healthcare reform. In a statement released in mid November, he
said, “I have been working on health care policy for more than 25 years, and I
have never been more hopeful about the prospects for reform-nor more convinced
about the overwhelming need for reform-than I am now.” As chairman of the
Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, Senator Rockefeller is also a leader on
the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and has stated he sees
SCHIP reauthorization as a step that would send an important message that
healthcare is a top priority. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Christopher Dodd
(D-CT), members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee,
have expressed sentiments on prevention and early intervention as needed
approaches to healthcare reform.
In addition, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
to study best practices to reduce healthcare costs and improve quality.
Specifically, they requested that GAO conduct a study that includes: 1)
identification of best practices utilized by states, integrated delivery
systems or other countries to reduce costs and improve quality; and 2) an
examination of the extent to which these best practices can be applied on a
system-wide basis in the U.S. To access the letter see
here.
Source
http://www.democracyinaction.org
Medicaid Benchmark Plans And Co-payment Final Rules Released
The final regulations on Medicaid state flexibility on benchmark plans and
Medicaid’s cost-sharing provisions, implementing section 6044 and section
6041-6043 of the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), were released on December 3 and
November 25, respectively. They can be accessed here and
here.
The final rules on benchmark plan flexibility are effective February 2, 2009
and the cost-sharing flexibility rules are effective 60 days after the date of
publication (November 25, 2008).
See the Bazelon Center’s summary of the DRA provisions in our
Policy Reporter
of March 2006, and our
report on state implementation.
Source
http://www.democracyinaction.org
Well-Developed Community Mental-Health Services Are Associated With Lower Suicide Rates
Well-developed community mental-health services are associated with lower suicide rates than are services oriented towards inpatient treatment provision in hospitals. Thus population mental health can be improved by the use of multi-faceted, community-based, specialised mental-health services. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article published Online first and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet, written by Dr Sami Pirkola, Department of Psychiatry, Helsinki University, Finland, and colleagues.
Worldwide, the organisation of mental-health services varies considerably, only partly because of available resources. In most developed countries, mental-health services have been transformed from hospital-centred to integrated community-based services. However, there is no decisive evidence either way to support or challenge this change.
The authors did a nationwide comprehensive survey of Finnish adult mental-health service units between September 2004 and March 2005. From health-care or social-care officers of 428 regions, information was obtained about adult mental-health services, and for each of the regions the authors measured age-adjusted and sex-adjusted suicide risk, pooled between 2000 and 2004 – and then adjusted for socioeconomic factors.
They found that, in Finland, the widest variety of outpatient services and the highest outpatient to inpatient service ratio were associated with a significantly reduced risk of death by suicide compared to the national average. Emergency services operating 24 hours were associated with a risk reduction of 16%. After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, the prominence of outpatient mental-health services was still associated with a generally lower suicide rate.
The authors conclude: “We have shown that different types of mental-health services are associated with variation in population mental health, even when adjusting for local socioeconomic and demographic factors. We propose that the provision of
multifaceted community-based services is important to develop modern, effective mental-health services.”
In an accompanying Comment, Dr Keith Hawton and Dr Kate Saunders, University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, UK, say: “The message to take from these findings must be that while well thought out and carefully planned new developments that increase access to secondary care services for mental-health patients are to be encouraged, measured progress towards flexible community care, not rapid ongoing change, should be the order of the day.”
“Community mental-health services and suicide rate in Finland: a nationwide small-area analysis”
Dr Sami Pirkola MD, Reijo Sund DSocSc, Eila Sailas MD, Prof Kristian Wahlbeck MD
The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 22 December 2008
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61848-6
Click here to view article online.
The Lancet
Henry Ford Hospital Taps EHealth Global To Integrate External Medical Record Collection With Enterprise-wide EMR Solution
eHealth Global Technologies announced that Henry Ford Hospital (Detroit, MI) has successfully integrated the company’s eHealthConnect medical record collection service with the hospital’s existing Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solution and Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). eHealthConnect is being used by the transplant, hematology/oncology and neurosurgery departments at Henry Ford Hospital. Specialists within these departments now have immediate access to important patient information, including external documents and images that are used to help determine the appropriate course of treatment.
“Time is of the essence when evaluating or treating a critically ill patient who has a life-threatening illness or a failing organ,” says Marianne Beach-Langlois, Transplant Administrator at Henry Ford Hospital. “With eHealthGlobal, our specialists now have access to all the patient information they need, wherever they are located throughout the health system and regardless of where that data originated.”
eHealthConnect replaces ad hoc data collection with a systematic method that makes patient medical records reliably and quickly available to authorized clinicians. Clinicians make one secure online request to the eHealth Global customer support team who then collect, digitize, organize, store and secure medical records. Medical records are integrated directly into Henry Ford Hospital’s EMR and radiology images are transferred in DICOM format into the PACS over a secure virtual private network (VPN) for prompt clinical viewing throughout the enterprise.
“Prior to this integration, our oncologists had to search for external patient medical records,” adds Lisa Vezzosi, Practice Administrator for the Josephine Ford Cancer Center at Henry Ford Hospital. “Now, we have one subfolder for oncology services, so our clinicians can locate patient information easier and quicker than before, resulting in a more efficient clinical workflow.”
eHealth Global worked directly with Henry Ford Hospital’s IT department to electronically integrate eHealthConnect into the facility’s existing EMR and PACS environment. All external patient information captured by eHealth Global is transferred to the appropriate subfolder in the EMR, depending upon the type of data (i.e., radiology films and reports, pathology or laboratory results), and image exams are logged into the PACS system after a Radiology Information System order is automatically generated.
“eHealth Global has helped Henry Ford Hospital create a more efficient clinical process by integrating external patient records directly into their existing PACS and EMR,” says Ken Rosenfeld, President and Chief Technology Officer. “As a result, clinicians can use the same workstation and tools for accessing external patient records that they already use for viewing internal patient data, removing the need for additional training. Plus, the hospital was able to keep costs down by using existing hardware and infrastructure, although this is not just about saving money, but about helping save lives.”
About Henry Ford Hospital
Henry Ford Hospital, a 903-bed tertiary care hospital, education and research complex in Detroit’s New Center Area, is the flagship hospital for Henry Ford Health System. The hospital is recognized for clinical excellence and innovation in the fields of cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopaedics and sports medicine, organ transplants, and treatment for prostate, breast and lung cancers. Henry Ford is a Level 1 trauma center.
About eHealth Global Technologies
eHealth Global is a leading medical record service provider that combines advanced information technology that is easy to use with its world-class clinical customer support team to collect and manage patient data that resides beyond the digital reach of our clients.
eHealth Global Technologies
Molecular Testing Will Be Routine Part Of Patient Treatment By 2010, Says New Report
Molecular medicine will
soon transform the entire spectrum of disease management, from
assuring the early detection of disease, to defining the prognosis of
disease evolution and predicting a patient’s response to specific
therapies. According to Kalorama Information’s new report, “The World
Market for Molecular Diagnostics,” as DNA-based diagnostic and
therapeutic interventions come to market and payers start to cover
those therapeutics that prove economically valuable, physicians will
begin to rely on them for treating their patients. This will propel
the molecular testing market, valued at $3.7 billion in 2007, into
double-digit annual growth through 2012.
Since the mid 1980s Roche’s PCR technology has dominated molecular
testing. However, many new technologies are poised to take over from
PCR, including bead arrays, electrochemical arrays, microarrays,
SNP-it and WAVE. These innovations incorporate the need for products
that can be easily miniaturized and simplified for use in routine
laboratories that have not yet invested in molecular methods. New
products will also respond to the demand for faster turnaround of
test results and for standardization of a large menu of tests on a
single platform, thus speeding the adoption of molecular assays in
routine patient care.
“The new molecular assays, techniques and test services that have
emerged in the past few years are directly related to the genomic
information culled from sequencing the human genome and pathogenic
organisms,” notes Kalorama Information analyst Shara Rosen. “By the
time DNA assays become part of the routine fabric of laboratory
medicine in 2010 or so, it is expected that physicians around the
world will rely on molecular assays in the treatment of their
patients.”
The success of molecular diagnostics will result from the
commercialization of rapid, user-friendly, inexpensive and
high-quality tests and, together with the discovery of
molecular-based therapeutics, will allow for more individualized
disease management.
Kalorama Information’s new report “The World Market for Molecular
Diagnostics,” highlights new molecular assays, techniques and test
services that have emerged in the past few years, reviewing those that
are currently available and those that are expected to take their
place. A market overview, market estimates and forecasts through 2012
are included, as well as profiles of 150 companies. For further
information, click here.
About Kalorama Information
Kalorama Information supplies the latest in independent market
research in the life sciences, as well as a full range of custom
research services. We routinely assist the media with healthcare
topics.
Kalorama Information
