News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

Report: Ransomware Attacks on IoT Medical Devices Will Likely Increase

Heather Landi | Healthcare Informatics | November 29, 2016

Cyber attackers are increasingly breaching Internet-enabled medical devices using ransomware and this is likely to continue for the next two to four years, according to Intel Security’s recent McAfee Labs 2017 Threats Predictions Report. According to the threat predictions report, in which Intel Security interviewed 31 security thought leaders, while it is not currently known why attackers are breaching medical devices that collect patient data, the attacks are happening and medical data is being exfiltrated...

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Report: Seven In 10 Students Graduate From College With Loans; Average Debt On The Rise

Nick Anderson | Washington Post | December 4, 2013

More than 70 percent of college graduates in 2012 had student loans, and their average debt surpassed $29,000, according to an independent analysis of federal data made public Wednesday. Read More »

Report: US Has One Of The Highest Child Poverty Rates In The Developed World

Pat Garofalo | ThinkProgress | May 29, 2013

According to a new report from the Office of Research at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a child poverty rate higher than the 23 percent rate in the U.S... Read More »

Reps. Mike Thompson, Scott Peters Introduce Bipartisan Bill Expanding Telehealth Services To Veterans, Active-Duty Servicemembers And Dependents

Press Release | Mike Thompson | November 15, 2013

Today, U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (CA-5) and Scott Peters (CA-52) introduced H.R. 3507, the 21st Century Care for Military & Veterans Act. This bipartisan legislation would expand coverage of telehealth services to active-duty servicemembers, their dependents, retirees, and veterans. [...] Read More »

Republican Health Care Executive on Single Payer: The Remedy is Universal Medicare

Jack Bernard | Physicians for a National Health Program | July 1, 2012

We did end up with a health care reform law. But, strangely enough, it was stolen from Romneycare and the Republican side of the aisle simply because of the political cost to the Democrats of inaction. It is a horse put together by a committee — ineffective, complex and political. If Romneycare is any indication, it will clearly not control costs to the taxpayer, the top health care concern of most Americans. Read More »

Request for Proposals for Next OpenMRS Conference

Michael Downey | OpenMRS | November 7, 2012

OpenMRS is requesting proposals to host the 2013 OpenMRS Implementers Meeting! Our annual Implementers Meeting began in 2006 as a way to bring members of the community together for an opportunity of face-to-face time to collaborate, share implementation experiences, and to find ways to improve the OpenMRS platform and community. Read More »

Research Raises Questions About App Usability, Accessibility

Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | August 5, 2016

While mobile health apps have the potential to help patients better manage their chronic conditions, consumers that would benefit most—the poor and minorities—are not able to access and use the technology to realize the benefits. That’s the finding of a new observational study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine researching the impact of apps developed to enable adults to manage their chronic conditions...

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Researcher Argues For Open Hardware To Defend Against NSA Spying

Antone Gonsalves | CSO | October 10, 2013

While there is no foolproof defense against government spying, snooping by entities like the National Security Agency could be made far more difficult through the use of Internet infrastructure built on open-source hardware, an academic researcher says. Read More »

Researcher Sounds Alarm On State Health Exchange Security

Jaikumar Vijayan | Computerworld | November 7, 2013

Several state healthcare exchanges established as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) appear buggy and easy to attack, a security researcher warned this week. Read More »

Researcher with Stage 4 Cancer Launches Site to Help Others Navigate Clinical Trials

Bob Tedeschi | STAT | May 17, 2017

Among patients with colon cancer, researcher Tom Marsilje has made a name for himself by helping others learn about new clinical trials. He has scoured the database ClinicalTrials.gov, circulated a weekly spreadsheet, and served as a clearinghouse for patients desperate for a chance to beat back their disease. But, for Marsilje, it has been a labor-intensive process, and it has been hard to escape a troubling reality...

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Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Examine the Impact of OpenNotes on Patient Safety

Press Release | BIDMC | August 12, 2015

Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) are homing in on the potential benefits of allowing patients access to the notes their clinicians write after a visit. An article published in the August edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety suggests that this kind of patient engagement has the power to improve safety and quality of care. The practice of sharing visit notes more readily began with the OpenNotes study in 2010. More than 100 primary care doctors at three hospitals invited 20,000 of their patients to read their visit notes through a secure, patient website.

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Researchers At Carnegie Mellon University Use Open Source 3D Printers To Rebuild Damaged Hearts

Press Release | Carnegie Mellon University | October 23, 2015

As of this month, over 4,000 Americans are on the waiting list to receive a heart transplant. With failing hearts, these patients have no other options; heart tissue, unlike other parts of the body, is unable to heal itself once it is damaged. Fortunately, recent work by a group at Carnegie Mellon could one day lead to a world in which transplants are no longer necessary to repair damaged organs. "We've been able to take MRI images of coronary arteries and 3-D images of embryonic hearts and 3-D bioprint them with unprecedented resolution and quality out of very soft materials like collagens, alginates and fibrins," said Adam Feinberg, an associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

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Researchers Call For Open Access To Autism Diagnostic Tools

Sarah DeWeerdt | Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) | June 24, 2013

Most of the world’s children live in low- and middle-income countries. Yet few epidemiological studies of autism prevalence have been conducted in these countries, and little is known about how the symptoms of autism vary from culture to culture. Read More »

Researchers Create Skeleton Robot with Human-Like Muscles

Billy Steele | Engadget | July 14, 2016

If robots that mimic animal or human behavior are your nightmare fuel, turn away now. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology went one step further with a skeleton robot, giving it human-like muscles to help with movement...

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Researchers develop new method for analysing cell function

Press Release | Academy of Finland | June 26, 2012

Researchers in Finland and Germany have developed an open-source software that will make it significantly easier to process bioimaging data. The software, named BioImageXD, will help in analysing cell and tissue functions.

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