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Dangers of Facebook for Teens

Teens who regularly use Facebook and Myspace are much more likely than social network avoiders to drink, smoke and use marijuana, according to a new report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Read more here.

Avant Healthcare Marketing Announces West Coast Expansion

Midwest medical communications agency Avant Healthcare Marketing has opened offices on the West Coast, marking the beginning of a long-term expansion after several partnerships with California-based biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

"We've experienced unprecedented momentum in the last year," said Rod Julian, Strategic Brand Network Director for Avant. "But we haven't lost sight of the importance of face-to-face interactions as the optimal means of comprehensively understanding our customers' objectives."

Read more here.

Read about the 5 Emerging eClinical Firms to Watch

Check out which hospitals made Health Care and Hospitals' "Most Wired" list.

Health Care WiFi Spending Ushers in $1.3B Market

The increase of technology, including smartphone and tablets, in the health care is causing the health wireless market within health care to grow to a $1.3 billion industry within the next five years, according to a new report by ABI research.

"WiFi has established itself as a key infrastructure technology within health care operations in North America and is continuing to expand uptake elsewhere," Jonathan Collins, an ABI analyst, wrote in an email to eWEEK. "We see adoption growing around the world over the next five years."

Read more here.

Researchers Show Gains in Finding Reusable Drugs

Researchers from Stanford University created a computer program much like an online dating service, but meant to match health issues with drugs by using high-throughput technology that rapidly searches the National Institutes of Health public databases containing the results of thousands of genomic studies. The program focused on 100 diseases and 164 drugs where normal and diseased tissue samples, or drugged and non-drugged samples, were compared in the same experiment. The program then looked for cases where a drug created a change in gene activity that was opposite to the gene activity caused by a disease, figuring this might indicate the drug would be an effective treatment. Read more here.

Health Care Prognosis Better With Digital Law: Peter Orszag

The U.S. health sector is rapidly digitizing, and now, the government expects to experience a substantial expansion in health IT because of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH)Act, a little-noticed component of the 2009 economic-stimulus bill. That digital revolution, in turn, is central to improving value in health care.

Read more here.

Telehealth Conference Talks about Innovation, Disruptive Technology

The Institute for Health Technology Transformation’s Seattle summit, titled "Unleashing the Power of mHealth and Telemedicine," concluded today. The meeting brought together more than 100 healthcare executives from around the country to discuss such issues as cloud computing, mobile health strategies to improve clinical outcomes, accelerating the adoption of mobile health projects and whether mobile health and telehealth could be considered disruptive technologies. Read more about the conference here.

Drugmakers No Longer Able To Block Wall Posts on Facebook

Many drug companies didn’t join Facebook until it allowed them to block the public’s ability to openly comment on a page Wall. But that's about to change today, and it's unclear why Facebook decided to reverse its original page setup.“We’re very strongly committed to social media, but we have to make sure that the amount of time and resources spent on [monitoring it for problems] is appropriate,” said Tony Jewell, an AstraZeneca spokesman. Read more here.

University of Illinois researchers unveiled a skin-mounted electronic device that could revolutionize the way patients are monitored and provide a breakthrough in computer gaming. Doctors used the device, much like a temporary tattoo, to monitor the heart and the brain.

Too Much Technology Breeds Health Problems in Teens

Teens who use excessive amounts of technology tend to miss more school and suffer from anxiety, depression and stomach aches. Teens who spend a lot of time on Facebook are also more likely to have narcissistic personalities.

Read more here.

Blood Test Detects Fetal Sex Much Earlier in Pregnancy

New technology can tell pregnant women the sex of their baby as early as seven weeks into a pregnancy, which is months earlier than usual, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. While the technology is exciting in many circles, researchers worried that the test would cause couples to misuse it in order to abort a baby based on gender. Read more here.

Cloud Computing Brings Challenges for Health Care Data Storage, Privacy

To learn more about the state of cloud computing in the health care industry, eWEEK talks with Chris Witt, president of IT provider Wake Technology Services, about how health care companies should approach cloud computing.

Read the interview here.

Insulin Pumps, Monitors Vulnerable to Hacking

Researchers have identified flaws that could allow someone to remotely hack into insulin pumps and alter the readouts of blood-sugar monitors. As a result, diabetics could get too much or too little insulin, a hormone they need for proper metabolism. Medical devices such as pacemakers and surgical instruments are being made with the ability to transmit vital health information from a patient’s body to doctors and other professionals. The FDA has announced that any medical device with wireless communication can be hacked, but industry officials are downplaying the flaws.

Read more here.

Partners HealthCare’s EHR goes mobile

Boston-based integrated Partners HealthCare, staffed by more than 5,000 practicing physicians, has taken its electronic medical record mobile with the help of InterSystems, in which an estimated 2,000 clinicians within Partners are now using the app. “Partners’ success at developing and deploying the mEHR so rapidly is an example of why they’re viewed as an innovation leader in the use of healthcare technology,” stated Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems Vice President of Strategic Planning, in a press release. “Mobility is becoming a watchword in the healthcare sector. The Partners mEHR provides clinicians with the ultimate in mobility by delivering the information they want, when and where they want it, in the presentation form that they want and expect.” Read more here.

Time for Pharma to Face Social Media Fears?

The pharmaceutical industry has been hesitant to jump into the social media space due to strict regulatory and compliance demands from the FDA, but those in the business might just have to take the plunge. Experts are now saying that, to survive in the post Web 2.0 world, pharma companies will need to weave social media into their businesses in order to be more customer-centered, more relationship oriented, and more transparent. Without participating, the industry is missing out on significant business and branding opportunities. Read more here.

A new portable blood test kit, known as an mChip, can tell within minutes if a person has HIV or syphilis. Researchers say it could provide a faster, cheaper and easier way to detect infectious diseases throughout the developing world.

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