Let’s take a look at how the capabilities of additive manufacturing have become the de facto method of production in these industries. Dentistry The largest market for additive manufacturing in medicine right now is dentistry and related orthodontics such as bridges, crowns, braces, and dentures. Currently, digital dentistry is a $2.5 billion industry and this is set to...
Joking aside, some predictions are pure hunch; others are extensions of trends observed in 2022 that will continue into 2023; and others still are a reflection of my deepest hopes—some of which I hope I will nudge into being by writing it here in this column. Without further ado, I give you the year ahead in healthcare, 2023 edition: 1) Medicare Advantage Will Remain U...
Ethylene Oxide’s Invaluable Role In Protecting Public Health Ethylene Oxide (EtO or EO) is a colorless gas used commercially in a wide variety of ways, including the production of textiles, personal care items, and the sterilization of medical devices, cosmetics, and spices. EtO is one of the most common ways to sterilize medical devices, which is crucial for preventing ...
People age at different rates due to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which can affect their biological age and their risk of developing diseases or experiencing early death. This is why two individuals who are both 50 years old may not have the same level of biological aging, despite having lived for the same number of years. Lifestyle choices, such as die...
The team is harnessing a novel means to turn cancer cells into anti-cancer agents that could eliminate tumors and train the immune system to prevent cancer recurrence. The effort is carried out in the lab of Khalid Shah, MS, Ph.D. at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, with the researchers keen on developing a cancer vaccine that yields long-term immunity against the conditi...
The health industry alone produces around 18 million tonnes of CO² annually, which is 3.2% of all CO² emissions for the UK. In fact, NHS hospitals have greater CO² emissions than the combined emissions of all flights out of Heathrow airport*. Adopting a life cycle approach for the construction of hospitals and other healthcare facilities is key in reducing environmental...
The project was managed by The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Bridger Carr Architects and main contractor Bermar Building Co. Ltd., with Yeoman Shield supplying and installing the wall protection elements. The unit will have amenities to accommodate a 13 - chair dental facility for the provision of dental treatment for adults and children with the flexibility to b...
Hospitals pose many challenges to manufacturers of video security systems (VSS) through a variety of complex scenarios that include the need to balance security with privacy, the prevalence of false alarms, compliance with evolving regulations and the increased number of violent incidents. The safety and security of patients, visitors and staff is a priority for hospita...
The ability of elevator systems to provide reliable service is crucial to ensure the most efficient health care possible. Often, the visitor or garage elevators are among the first touch points that patients and their families have with the health care facility, and a poor experience negatively affects the assessment of the patient care experience. In urban areas, verti...
A new AI-based tool in South Australia can accurately predict when a general surgery patient is about to be discharged from the hospital. Called the Adelaide Score, it was developed by a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and the Health and Information Collaborative. This tool is being eyed for a statewide trial later th...
Pharmacy IT solutions provider Fred IT has won the contract to deliver Australia's national electronic prescribing delivery service. It will be delivering the service through eRx Script Exchange which shall ensure continuous access to a "robust, secure electronic prescription network." In a media release, the company shared some upcoming improvements in the national se...
This kind of printer, which can fit on a tabletop, could be deployed anywhere vaccines are needed, the researchers say. "We could someday have on-demand vaccine production," says Ana Jaklenec, a research scientist at MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "If, for example, there was an Ebola outbreak in a particular region, one could ship a few of these pr...
The findings, featured in a new Radiology study, can help the healthcare sector meaningfully reduce its carbon footprint, one that accounts for 4.4% of global carbon emissions. Working in tandem with UCSF, one of the most prestigious universities in the USA focused solely on health, Siemens Smart Infrastructure provided technologies from the Siemens Xcelerator portfoli...
Rare diseases are defined by their prevalence, where any given individual disease affects a small proportion of a population; but collectively, rare diseases are estimated to affect at least 3.5–5.9 percent of people worldwide.1 It is estimated that 80 percent of rare diseases have a genetic cause, and sequencing strategies are often performed to aid diagnosis.2 But even...
Are the currently approved antibody therapies used to treat patients who have a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease also effective against the viral variants that are currently in circulation? According to a new study conducted by scientists at the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlang...
For years now, robots and automation have been making their way into pharmaceutical production. Lately, though, the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm in the form of ChatGPT: a uniquely human AI bot that will have conversations with you, research for you, and adapt to what you ask it to do. In education circles, this has raised questions a...
Let’s start with what Para 7 of Annex-1 has to say about the personnel and garment qualification and also its relevance to the article: Para 7.13 and 7.15 specifically talks about garments and its specification to be compliant with the cleanroom use. For example, in 7.15- “Every operator entering grade B or A areas should gown into clean, sterilised protective garments (...
In an article published recently in The BMJ, doctors advocate for improved ionizing radiation protection for women in healthcare who are regularly exposed to radiation through X-rays and other imaging procedures, in order to reduce their risk of developing breast cancer. Due to the high sensitivity of breast tissue to radiation and the fact that ionizing radiation is a ...
The resulting cine loop enables clinicians to observe the dynamic motion of anatomical structures over time, enhancing diagnostic capabilities. DDR is the only imaging technology that provides a view of anatomy in motion, with a large field of view and low radiation dose. DDR images can be analyzed and quantified with advanced image processing of the DI-X1 workstation p...
Globally, there are approximately 55 million people who suffer from dementia, and the incidence of the disease has steadily increased. This population is expected to triple by 2050, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Dementia affects not only the quality of life of individuals, but also adds significant economic burdens to families and society. Epidemiolo...
Researchers at the University College London (UCL) Queen Square Institute of Neurology have discovered a network of connections in the brain linked to seizures in people with epilepsy. The team believes that its findings, published in Brain, will help redesign neurological operations for patients whose epilepsy can’t be controlled by medication. By disconnecting certain...
Researchers from Monash University's Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health have developed a mobile app that helps personalise the sleep-wake cycle of hospital shift workers. HOW IT WORKS The app called SleepSync entirely tailors a sleep-wake cycle to an individual user by taking into account their calendar for work and personal commitments and daily logging of ...
Demand for diagnostic testing continues to rise due to converging factors. Noncommunicable diseases are widespread, where nearly 60 percent of adults in the US live with at least one chronic condition. The ageing population is also growing—according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, in 2015, people over the age of 60 made up 12.3 percent of the global populatio...
Did you know that 1 in 6 children aged 3-17 years has a developmental disability and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with autism? However, many children with a developmental disability are not identified until after they start school. Many parents of children diagnosed with autism have concerns about...
This March marked the beginning of the month of Ramadan, a spiritual time of year where Muslims around the world increase their worship and awareness of God. This includes performing nightly prayers, reading religious scripture and abstaining from food and drink every day from before sunrise until sunset for the entire month. Fasting is a common spiritual practice in ma...
As many caregivers know, sucking can help calm a fussy baby. Pacifiers are often used to help babies fall asleep, sooth anxiety and go through medical procedures, such as vaccination and blood tests. Pacifiers can also lower the risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and sudden unexpected infant death (SUID). But you may have also heard that pacifiers are bad for y...
Every child gets a fever from time to time, and usually it’s nothing to worry about. In fact, it’s the body’s way of fighting off infection such as viruses and bacteria, so it’s a sign your child’s immune system is revving up and acting appropriately. But it’s important to know what to do when this happens. Here are some fever dos and don’ts to help your child feel bette...
This technology uses bio-materials to create artificial tissue structures needed to treat patient diseases or injuries. The hydrogel-based bioinks used for this process are composed of cells. In order to make them effective, these bio-materials must be strengthened with UV light or chemical processes. However, according to the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (K...
A team of researchers has come up with an implantable fuel cell that they say can manage type 1 diabetes — and make use of glucose in the body to power itself instead of relying on an external power source. The device, devised at ETH Zurich in Basel, Switzerland, can release insulin depending on the patient's blood sugar levels, a task that is conventionally taken care ...
OpenAI advertises its new AI model as being “more creative and collaborative than ever before” and “can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy”. The tool is already being adopted by organisations such as Be My Eyes to assist visually impaired people and Khan Academy in education; and we will surely encounter more medical use in the months to come. So let’s get ac...
1. Do you know enough about AI? As a medical student or a young doctor, it is crucial to have a fundamental understanding of AI, its applications, and potential implications. The Medical Futurist’s paper, A short guide for medical professionals in the era of artificial intelligence provides a high-level overview of AI, its definitions, methods, levels, dangers, and advan...
A team of researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel has come up with tiny micro-robots that can scan individual cells to tell whether they're healthy or in trouble. These tiny cell inspectors, a mere ten microns across each, are even capable of transporting desired cells to a different location with the use of electricity or a magnet for later genetic analysis, makin...
A new study demonstrates that a certain type of activation of the brain’s own immune cells, microglia cells, triggers inflammatory protective mechanisms in the immune system. Microglia cells can either slow or drive disease progression in neurological diseases depending on how they’re activated. Researchers at Lund University and Karolinska Institute explored how these c...
Cholera, a bacterial disease that induces diarrhea, affects millions of people and results in about 150,000 deaths each year. An early detection system for a cholera outbreak would help professionals improve the allocation of resources and aid, but the monitoring of fecal samples is not an easy or non-invasive task. Now, Maia Gatlin, a research engineer at the Georgia I...
A new study highlights specific dog behaviors that dog owners perceive as important for bonding with their pets. Katie Riddoch of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on September 28. Robots with social behaviors have been proposed as a potential solution to ease people's loneliness and the challe...
Knowing that only fools predict the future and knowing further that I qualify as a fool — my kids regularly remind me — I’ll take a stab at 10 veterinary profession trends to watch. But first, let’s look quickly at the present. We have so much to be proud of, starting with longer pet lifespans, the ever-growing human-animal bond, advances in medicine, record pet numbers,...
