News Clips
Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
Many Americans can’t remember anything other than an economy with skyrocketing inequality, in which living standards for most Americans are stagnating and the rich are pulling away. It feels inevitable. But it’s not. A well-known team of inequality researchers — Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman — has been getting some attention recently for a chart it produced. It shows the change in income between 1980 and 2014 for every point on the distribution, and it neatly summarizes the recent soaring of inequality...
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Australia's Digital Health Strategy Gets the Nod Without Data Interoperability Controls
My Health Record, the Australian government's e-health record system, has been officially given the green light from the Council of Australian Governments Health Council to automatically sign citizens up to the service, allowing them to opt-out if they choose. By 2018, all Australians will have a My Health Record and by 2022, all healthcare providers will be able to contribute to and use health information in My Health Record on behalf of their patients. They will also be able to communicate with other healthcare providers on the clinical status of joint patients via the digital platform...
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CDC invests more than $200 million to help states respond to infectious disease threats
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded more than $200 million through the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC) cooperative agreement to help states, cities, counties, and territories prevent, detect, respond to, and control the growing threats posed by emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. State programs are the foundation of the U.S. public health system and are integral to the nation’s efforts to combat infectious disease threats. CDC and states work together to improve local surveillance, laboratory diagnostic capabilities, and outbreak response.
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Research Symbiosis Makes Mathematical Crystal Ball to Gaze into Future of Prostate Cancer Treatment
The chemotherapy docetaxel is widely accepted as a standard therapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. But 10-20 percent of patients will have adverse side effects that force discontinuation of treatment. These patients may have been better off with another treatment in the first place, but who’s to know before trying the drug which patients will go on to experience debilitating side effects? A crowdsourced competition asked this as an open question. Today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Clinical Cancer Informatics, competition organizers and participating teams report their findings...
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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Urges the USDA to Make GMO-Labeling Transparent, Accessible
As the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) develops final rules on GMO-labeling requirements over the next year, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) and fellow lawmakers called on Secretary Perdue to ensure labeling standards are consumer-friendly, fair, and transparent. In July 2016, Congress passed weak GMO labeling standards into law that create a confusing web of disclosure options, allowing companies to choose between on-package text, a USDA-regulated symbol, or an electronic or digital link (e.g., QR code)...
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To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
Although Russian hackers are reported to have tried to disrupt the November election with attacks on the voting systems of 39 states, the consensus of the intelligence community is that they were probably unsuccessful in their efforts to delete and alter voter data. But another national election is just 15 months away, and the risk that those working on behalf of President Vladimir Putin of Russia could do real damage — and even manage to mark your ballot for you or altering your vote — remains...
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Percona Announces Speakers, Tutorials and Sponsors for Percona Live Open Source Database Conference Europe 2017
Percona, the company that delivers enterprise-class MySQL®, MongoDB® and other open source database solutions and services, today revealed the initial roster of speakers, tutorials and sponsors for Percona Live Open Source Database Conference Europe 2017, taking place September 25-27, 2017 at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Dublin, Ireland. The special Early Bird registration discount rate is only available until August 8, 2017, and a special room rate at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel expires on August 14, 2017. Sponsorship opportunities are still available...
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Millions of Americans Live Nowhere Near a Hospital, Jeopardizing Their Lives
As a nurse practitioner, Wanda Liddell knew it was a medical emergency when she saw one of her patients struggling to breathe last month. But in her backcountry town of Cross City, Florida, the ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive. Even worse, it was another 45 miles to the nearest hospital. Liddell faces this situation often and always wonders, what if? She is one of many medical providers working in towns 30 miles or more from a hospital, a distance that can make the difference between life or death...
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GAO Makes Appointments to Health Information Technology Advisory Committee
Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), today announced 15 appointments to the new Health Information Technology (HIT) Advisory Committee. It is extremely valuable to have a range of perspectives and expertise in helping the government address challenges related to health information technology, “It is extremely valuable to have a range of perspectives and expertise in helping the government address challenges related to health information technology,” Dodaro said...
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mHealth Solutions Market Worth 90.49 Billion USD by 2022
According to a new market research "mHealth Solutions Market by Connected Devices (Blood Pressure Monitor, Glucose Meter, Peak Flow Meter) Apps (Weight Loss, Woman Health, Personal Health Record, & Medication) Services (Diagnostic, Remote Monitoring, Consultation) - Global Forecasts to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets™, the Global mHealth Solutions Market is expected to reach USD 90.49 Billion by 2022 from USD 21.17 Billion in 2017, at a CAGR of 33.7%...
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5 Apps Working to Improve Women’s Safety Across the World
Girls in Dharavi Diary Slum are learning how to code apps, changing the lives of people living in Mumbai’s biggest slum. The project aims to empower and educate girls from the Dharavi slum, giving them vital skills to thrive in a digital world. In a country where education for girls is considered secondary to maintaining the family home, this programme is revolutionary in changing the way India is looking at education for girls...
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Why Apple and Other Tech Companies Are Fighting to Keep Devices Hard to Repair
Apple is the largest company on Earth by market cap, and its success is derived from selling brand-new high-end smartphones consistently month after month. At the peak of its iPhone business, back in 2015, Apple sold a staggering 231.5 million smartphones. Though sales have begun to slow, that one device alone still accounts for more than 50 percent of Apple’s entire business. The company’s second quarter earnings results for 2017, reported on Tuesday, showed a quarterly profit of $8.7 billion, a majority of which came from the sale of 41 million iPhones...
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NASCIO Recognizes Outstanding Achievements in State IT: Finalists Announced for 2017 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has selected 32 finalists across 11 categories for the State IT Recognition Awards. This is the 29th consecutive year NASCIO has honored outstanding information technology achievements in state government through the awards. Projects and initiatives from NASCIO member states, territories, and the District of Columbia were eligible for nomination. NASCIO members served as volunteer judges to review the 100+ submissions, narrowing the nominees down to finalists in each category. From these finalists, a recipient will be announced during an awards dinner at the upcoming NASCIO Annual Conference this October in Austin, Texas...
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Fish Exposed to Wastewater Absorb Many Medications Meant for People
Evidence that fish are being contaminated by pharmaceuticals introduced into wastewater keeps building. That's clear as scientists look beyond drug levels in bodies of water and directly measure concentrations in the blood of fish that swim there, as one team undertook for a new study published July 26 in the journal Environmental Pollution. While experts say human health isn't at risk, unknowns remain, given the increases in pollution levels as the population grows...
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Stakeholders Look to Improve C-CDA as FHIR Matures
As the healthcare industry continues to wrestle with interoperability challenges, two standards are poised to play a central role in facilitating the electronic exchange of health information—one is a blunt tool for data sharing, while the other is a surgical instrument. First adopted in 2012 as part of the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT’s 2014 Edition final rule, the Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) version 1.1—developed through the joint efforts of ONC and Health Level Seven (HL7) International—is now widely used among healthcare providers...
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