Reference Designer

US medical system is under financial strains with high cost associated with the doctor fee, hospitalization charges, high medical equipment cost, soaring medicine cost. A typical insurance premium for a 4 member family in United States is in the vicinity of $1000 ( give or take a hundred dollars). This is beyond the affordability for most of the middle and lower income US families. If their employer or the State do not provide assistance, this will simply mean the they will have to be without medical insurance.

On the macro level, a number of policy decisions need to be made to make  health insurance more affordable for individuals, businesses and government. On Micro level, a number of small things can increase the cost efficacy of  the treatment plan and reduce the cost of the treatment. In today’s blog I will write about how to reduce the cost of Bilirubin treatment in neonatals.

How is Bilirubin Treated for Neonatal

Noeborn kids remain at Hospitals typically for two days for the treatment of Bilirubin. Typical cost to the patient or the insurance companies vary from $3000 to $5000. The treatment itself is surprisingly simple. It needs just the ultra violet radiation in controlled and measure fashion for about 48 hours to treat most of the bilrubin patients.

How can the cost be reduced

The excessive cost is resulted because the patient need to be at the hospital for two days. The cost is escalated due to the stay which involves nursing, cleaning, food and lodging along with the medical treatment. All of this can be avoided by not requiring the patient to be admitted to the hospital. The patient should be handed over a portable ultra violet emission device alongwith a method to measure the bilirubin by himself, in the same way blood glucose is measured.  The portable ultra violet device can be returned by the patient to the hospital at the end of the treatment. The patient should be instructed how to use the ultra violet emission device.

The method should be used for all non serious cases of the bilirubin. For all advanced cases of bilirubin, the patient should be hospitalized and the traditional method should be used.

A Low cost Ultraviolet LED Solution

Light emitting diodes (LEDs)  operating  in the 410 – 490 nm wavelength range (peak at 475 nm) have been developed. These gallium nitride(GaN)/sapphire LEDs can produce high irradiance with very low power requirements suitable in the ultraviolet spectrum. These LEDs emit  ultra violet light within the peak absorption range of bilirubin.. They promise to be low cost, portable and have long operational lifespans.

Bilirubin Detection – Pathological Advancements

Current practices in pathalogical diagnosis of Bilburin requires a large volume of the blood sample from the patient.  Several newer methods have been develped that will require smaller blood sample.  These memethods acquisit the current signals produced from bilirubin by an electrochemical sensor. Requirement of the smaller blood sample is another research area that need investigation and implementation.

Health, Uncategorized healthcare

Medication adherence refers to the degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice, most commonly, medication, prescribed to the patient. It also refers to the self-directed physiotherapy exercises, or attending counseling or other courses of therapy as prescribed by the physician.

There are several reasons why patient may not comply to the medication adherence. The most important of them is the forgetfulness. Patients’ poor rapport with the doctor and unclear purpose of the treatment are other major causes of the non Adherence to the medication adherence. It has been reported that only 50% of the patients suffering from chronic diseases adhere to the medication prescribed by the physicians. This non adherence poorly affects patient’s health. Once a treatment plan is chartered out between the patient and the doctor its affect must be clearly explained by the doctor and a written instruction must be provided by the doctor in order to increase the medication adherence.

The Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council of Europe/HCPC-Europe , a not profit organization was setup between the pharmaceutical industry, the packaging industry to improve the patient compliance or adherence through the use of packaging solutions.HCPC Europe defines Medical Compliance as “taking the right dose of the right medication at the right time for the prescribed duration of the treatment”.

Many companies have developed packaging solutions to aid in medication adherence. Most are based on the use of a solid dose blister as the primary package. Many material and component suppliers as well as pharmaceutical contract packagers have worked to develop proprietary packaging formats.

some companies like Senticare have developed automated solution to aid medication adherence. The PillStation from Senticare is device that brings a new approach to medication adherence. According to Senticare “PillStation uses digital pill tray images and a remote monitoring center to provide customized medication reminders that can provide the help that you an millions of individuals need to stay adherent.”

Increase medication adherence means better health and less healthcare cost. It also means less burden on the insurance companies. In recognition to the importance of the medication adherence, many companies have started reimbursing for the appliances that increase medication adherence.

Vikas Shukla is the lead architect of Hardware Design at BL Healthcare. He also provides consultancy for SEO and social media marketing.

Health healthcare, telemedicine

I am now onwards planning to give a shift to the topics of blogs that I have been writing so far. Instead of focusing on online marketing, SEO and somewhat signal integrity topics I will focus on the topics that relate to health, yoga, exercise – my pet subjects – which I hope many people will find useful.

The key to all kind of body exercises is the feeling of the ligh pain that arises in the body, joints when we make change sin the body. Next time ,to do nay kind of exercise ensure that you “feel” as much of the change as possible. You can then invent you own postures, your own way of making changes in the body and experiencing the changes.

The exercise should focus on all parts of the body from toe to head. Start with toes, fingers for legs, ankle. Make changes by bending, rotating and other ways and ensure that you feel pain at the joins. Never over do that pain. Just the moment the pain start, shift the focus to paying attention to it. You similarly can keep doing on all other parts of the body. Make your legs tight and feel the tightness. Make you hand, palm and shoulder and feel the stiffness. Then relax it. Make your back stiff and hard and feel the stiffness and hardness. Make you belly hard and soft alternatively and feel the hardness and softness. Bend your neck backwards and forwards and feel the pinch.

You are traveling in a Bus. The journey is long. Use the time to keep exercising. You do not even need a mat to do that. While sitting in the Bus, just keep doing that. After half an hour, you may be more awake, you may be feeling half asleep. The body will start going through cleansing process. Close your eyes and and just feel whatever happens to your body. See that the breath is going in and going out. And relax.

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UPMC Teams with BL Healthcare for Remote Healthcare Initiative : To Include
Investment in BL Healthcare

As mentioned in  news release, UPMC announced a joint  initiative with BL Healthcare to address the issues of access to quality  healthcare and rising healthcare costs by using technology to provide remote care over broadband. UPMC Health Plan will leverage BL Healthcare’s next  generation remote monitoring platform to provide unique and innovative services to their members.

This initiative will enable such services as at-home vital sign monitoring and real-time video connections with clinicians for UPMC Health Plan members with chronic conditions. The initiative also leverages a strategic investment by PMC Health Plan in BL Healthcare, a Massachusetts-based electronic health technology company.

The news release adds that, “BL  Healthcare has gone beyond simple remote monitoring of vital signs to provide an integrated platform focused on the needs of our members, with advanced functionality such as videoconferencing, education using on-demand movies,
real-time messaging and alerts, and unique member interaction features.  UPMC Health Plan along with its parent company UPMC, has embraced the concept of telehealth because we see it as a means to provide scarce healthcare and medical expertise to vulnerable populations.”

“UPMC is taking an aggressive leadership position in driving innovative new evidence based medicine practices for remote care management,” according to Michael Mathur, President and CEO of BL Healthcare.  “We are confident that this will result in the dramatic efficiencies that our national healthcare
system requires in order to be sustainable. UPMC Health Plan’s vision and proactive implementation will set an example for others to follow and we are pleased to be working with them as a partner.”

It gives me immense pleasure to be the sole hardware designer of the BL Healthcare’s business products. I expect that in forthcoming days BL Healthcare will reach new heights with its innovative product lines.

SOURCE :  UPMC Health Plan

Gina Pferdehirt, Director, Public Relations & Community Relations of UPMC
Health Plan, +1-412-454-4953, pferdehirtgm@upmc.edu

Health telemedicine

What is Laika

Laika is used to test the interoperability capability of EHR systems.  It is based upon open source software. Laika veifies the input and output of EHR data against the standards and criteria identified by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT).

Since June 2008, Laika has been used by CCHIT to perform the automated testing of EHR systems for interoperability.

Laika uses the Ruby on Rails framework, JAVA,, the MySQL database, and some JavaScript libraries including Scriptaculous and Prototype.

How to download

You may like to check http://laika.sourceforge.net/ , if you are interested in downloading and installing Laika. You do not need to be a EHR vendor to use laika. Although Laika has been designed to support testing of EHRs, you can still use the tool to see how Laika and the EHR standards that it tests are used.

If you are developing and EHR system you may like to check out laika.

Health telemedicine

BL Healthcare Inc. has secured $3 million of a planned $5 million Series A investment round, through the placement of preferred stock and warrants.

BL Healthcare, based in Foxboro, Massachusetts, is a leading provider of next generation remote health management solutions to the Healthcare Industry. Leveraging the convergence of the Internet, Broadband technology, and Open Systems, BL Heatlhcare provides innovative solutions for linking patients, providers, and caregivers for the monitoring and management of wellness and disease states at distributed points of healthcare access, particularly in the patient’s home.

The funding will help bring the TVx and TCxI products to market.

The company had previously taken about $700,000 in angel funding, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Among its backers are Hub Angel Investment Group LLC of Boston.

Founded by Michael Mathur in 2005, BL Healthcare landed approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market its product in 2006.

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