Posts by: Paul Pisklak

New iPhone App Locates Specialized Emergency Center Nearest to You

by Paul Pisklak on Feb 13, 2012

If you have an iPhone, chances are you use it daily to find the places you need to go, including health care providers  However, although most hospitals are equipped for general medical emergencies, certain hospitals have specialists for specific conditions immediately available.  For example, there are hospitals that have designations as “stroke centers” that can rapidly mobilize the necessary equipment and personnel for acute stroke treatment, and the same goes for eye emergencies and pediatric trauma.  Now there’s an app that finds the specialized center closest to you based on the type of emergency you’re facing.

Appropriately named, the “Emergency Medical Center Locator” has you select a type of emergency from a list consisting of burn, cardiac, eye, pediatric, stroke, and trauma. The criteria for selecting these designations isn’t clearly explained in the app or on the website, but on a test run of the app here in Houston, the results seemed appropriate based on this editor’s experience rotating through most of the hospitals in our Medical Megalopolis.  You can also enter an international location, and indeed, two pediatric hospitals, a heart hospital, and a general hospital near Bangkok were located quickly.

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LowestMed’s New App Uses GPS to Find Best Prescription Prices Near You

by Paul Pisklak on Jan 26, 2012

LowestMed is a discount prescription service that shops for the lowest price for prescription medications.  The idea is that you enter the medication prescribed, and whether you are at the doctor’s office or out looking for a refill, the app tells you (and shows you, via GPS), the pharmacy with the best deal on that prescription.

The app launched Wednesday, and we had a chance to interview Brad Bangerter, CEO of LowestMed.

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St. Jude Medical’s FAME II Trial Halted Due to Positive Results

by Paul Pisklak on Jan 23, 2012

In the world of coronary artery disease treatment, if you blink, you will miss the latest development, so stent your eyes open for this latest piece of the puzzle.  The latest question that keeps getting a new answer with every study is whether optimum medical therapy (OMT) or percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) provides the best results for patients with coronary artery disease. With the introduction of fractional flow reserve (FFR) technology, the question had to be asked anew.

In case you haven’t heard of it, FFR is an index that compares the pressure proximal to a coronary artery obstruction to the pressure distal to that obstruction.  In other words, it measures how much a given lesion actually impairs flow to the myocardium.  Previously, the decision about whether to stent a given vessel was more subjective, and lesions that looked “suspicious” on angiograms were stented.  FFR gives a more objective component to this judgment, and it was hoped that this would improve outcomes.

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Bolton Medical Completes Patient Enrollment in EVAR Trial

by Paul Pisklak on Jan 17, 2012

Aneurysms of the abdominal aorta have traditionally required an open approach, a high-risk and bloody surgery with a long recovery time. In recent years this practice has been supplanted in certain patient populations by endovascular  aortic repair (EVAR).  In this approach, a graft is introduced into the aorta through the femoral artery, requiring a shorter hospital stay and less blood loss.  One company actively involved in this field is Bolton Medical, based out of Florida and Barcelona.  We last reported on their Treovance Abominal Stent-Graft in May 2011, when the ADVANCE trial of this device first started (link).  Now, patient enrollment has been completed, and the results are reported to be encouraging, although the final data isn’t available yet.

“The Bolton ADVANCE study has been completed and so far the device shows promising results”, said Prof. Roberto Chiesa, Principal Investigator for the ADVANCE Study “I think that the Treovance Abdominal Stent-Graft continues a new generation of devices focused on providing: low-profile systems, precise

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Use Your iPhone to Overcome Your Phobias

by Paul Pisklak on Jan 3, 2012

Phobias are the most common psychiatric problems, ranging from fear of flying and heights to needles and spiders. Traditional treatment consists of psychotherapy, specifically exposure to the stimulus with attempts to control the response. Now, a new offering from Self-Study Apps purports a similar approach in the comfort of your own home.

The app goes for $2.99 and has different sections for dealing with dentists, spiders, and flying. We tested “Fear Dentists”, which should appeal to our anti-dentite readers. The app shows a picture of a teddy bear for a few seconds, then it shows a picture of the stimulus, in this case a set of teeth being threatened by a sharp implement, although you can select your own image or take a photo. Next, you use your finger to blur the evil dental picture. Following, the screen flashes between the blurred image and the teddy bear. This repeats several times, then an affirming message is displayed.

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New Pyxis Parses Pills with Perfection

by Paul Pisklak on Dec 5, 2011

The daily activities of the modern hospital are increasingly automated and computer-controlled.  While the benefits in terms of preventing medication errors are attractive, an unwanted side effect is the proliferation of competing, often incompatible systems.  When you have several systems and databases in each hospital (medical records, order entry, medication list, medication orders, medication administration records, etc.), each of which are proprietary and don’t communicate with each other, the technology becomes cumbersome and leads to decreased efficiency and increased staff frustration.

CareFusion, maker of the ubiquitous Pyxis medication dispensing system, is trying to address this problem with the Pyxis ES platform.  One of the key features of this new system is that it seeks to integrate many hospital systems, touting increased integration with pharmacy information systems and allowing access at the web-browser level for ease of support.  Other upgrades include a new user interface that provides more information about the patient at the point of care, and safety features such as highlighting patients with the same name to avoid giving that medication to the wrong John Smith.

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Drug-Eluting Stents Made Easy: Simpler Insertion and Enhanced Drug Delivery with New Amino-Acid Based System

by Paul Pisklak on Nov 23, 2011

Conventional coronary artery stenting involves quite a few steps: advancing a guidewire, dilating the lesion with a balloon, removing the balloon catheter, then doing the actual stenting.  Svelte Medical Systems, Inc.’s All-in-One Drug-Eluting System is designed to make the process much more straightforward by incorporating the guidewire, balloon, and stent itself into one assembly that is advanced en bloc. The firm claims that this system can save 10 minutes and $500 per procedure, which really adds up in a busy cath lab.

In addition to the streamlined deployment process, this new product features a drug delivery system by DSM Biomedical that elutes sirolimus in a novel way. According to the company, by using enzyme-mediated “bioerosion,” the agent is degraded in a “controlled, biocompatible, natural and nontoxic” way.

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Boston Scientific’s SpyGlass System Proves Safe and Effective – Peroral Cholangioscopists Throughout The World Rejoice!

by Paul Pisklak on Nov 15, 2011

We last mentioned Boston Sci’s Spyglass system in 2007.  In case you missed it, this is a single-operator cholangioscopy (SOC) device, allowing doctors to more easily navigate the labyrinth that is the pancreatico-biliary system. Previously, this procedure required a two-endoscopist team with a duodenoscope and cholangioscope to directly visualize and manipulate the bile ducts. The Spyglass system makes possible for this to be done by a single operator – ostensibly, this reduces costs and should allay patient anxiety in the case of awake interventions.

The traditional approach to biliary imaging and intervention is ERCP (Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography), but large or multiple cystic duct stones may be difficult to remove the traditional way – this is where cholangioscopic devices come in.  In the October 2011 issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the  system was shown to have an overall procedural success rate of 89%. This approach can be useful in the diagnosis of biliary problems, obtaining biopsies, and in intervening in the case of stones. The study followed nearly 300 patients at 15 centers in the U.S. and Europe.

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Medgadget Q&A: Five Questions for Mark Rutenberg, CEO of CDx Diagnostics

by Paul Pisklak on Nov 9, 2011

Last week CDx Diagnostics announced the release of a new brush biopsy system that promises to improve the sensitivity of pre-cancerous esophageal adenocarcinoma testing. As founder and CEO of the company, Mark Rutenberg has been developing the technology behind the EndoCDx brush biopsy. He kindly agreed to answer a few of our questions about this technology and what it offers clinicians and their patients.

Medgadget: Mr. Rutenberg, what is the advantage of using your brush biopsy system as opposed to standard cytology brushes?

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