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Innovative medical plastic devices define the road ahead
Don Rosato ManufacturingFuture medical device innovations are expected to center around six major technological areas.
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Breast cancer screening: A long road ahead
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan Medical & Allied HealthcareIn a recent New York Times article, the authors give a great summation into the truth and uncertainty in breast cancer screening. With such an emotional and destabilizing life event as breast cancer, women want clear and concise information. This article and the JAMA article it is based on takes a courageous stand to say: It's not clear and certainly not concise.
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Health spending growth low for 4th consecutive year
Pamela Lewis Dolan Healthcare AdministrationFor the fourth consecutive year, growth in healthcare spending remained historically low. But the likelihood this trend will continue, and how the Affordable Care Act will impact it, is still in question. From 2009 to 2012, the U.S. saw the slowest growth in healthcare spending since the government started tracking these trends in the 1960s, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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Flying HEMS into Haiti
Mark Huber Medical & Allied HealthcareThe Caribbean nation of Haiti — the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere on half the island of Hispaniola — has been in need of everything for so long that the dire state of its 10 million people often is sadly viewed akin to the tide: Something man cannot change. But one group is intent on bringing medical assistance to Haiti by establishing an HEMS operation there. To understand what a big step this is, it's important to understand a bit about the impoverished nation.
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Latest advances in the diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury
Dr. Afsaneh Motamed-Khorasani Medical & Allied HealthcareIn the United States alone, more than 1.7 million individuals have been reported to have some sort of traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year. Of those, 80 percent could be categorized as mild TBI (mTBI) or concussion. It has been also reported that 15 percent of the patients with mTBI went to private clinics, while an additional 25 percent did not seek any medical attention. For this reason, TBI has been known as the silent epidemic.
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Medical plastic process developments take center stage
Don Rosato ManufacturingPlastics are integral to the entire medical industry's supply chain and their use is projected to surge as the population ages. As demand for smaller medical devices grows, innovative manufacturing technologies are being adopted to allow for production of ultra-precise designs. The medical device universe encompasses a particularly imposing spectrum of constant technological innovation, including hundreds of different technologies and thousands of types of products.
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New advances in the hydrophilicity of carotenoids
Dr. Afsaneh Motamed-Khorasani PharmaceuticalCarotenoids have antioxidant properties and are mostly hydrophobic in nature. In recent years, attempts have been made to increase the hydrophilicity of carotenoids due to their potential applications in the medicine and food industries.
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Medical school education challenges
Rosemary Sparacio Medical & Allied HealthcareIt is no secret that the cost of medical school education has skyrocketed, and enrolling in a medical school in the U.S. is difficult. Along with that, or perhaps as a reaction to that, students turn to schools out of the country and look for other ways to pay for this education. In August, the U.S. government proposed tying students' financial aid to its ratings of colleges using graduation rates, postgraduation employment and income, and affordability as parameters for the ratings. This has proven disastrous for medical schools in the past.
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Food for thought: Exercise your optimism muscle
Karen Childress Healthcare AdministrationIf you routinely hear phrases like "Why are you so negative?" coming from people who know you well — your spouse, practice partner, office manager or even your children — it may be time to work on building up your optimism muscle. The dictionary definition of optimism is, "a feeling or belief that good things will happen in the future," but deep-seated optimism goes beyond simply the ability to maintain a sunny, hopeful outlook on life.
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Kinesio taping for skeptics
Heidi Dawson Sports & FitnessKinesio tape, or myofascial tape, has really exploded in popularity in the last five years. It has actually been around for more than 25 years, but has only more recently been used extensively, worldwide. I write this article as a skeptic. I have been a skeptic since I first saw it back in 2007 on David Beckham's bare torso.
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