IIOT
Validate and verify medical devices to ensure safety
Sometimes surgeons ask to have nonmedical devices sterilized, such as spoons, hockey pucks, and fish hooks. Healthcare staff may want to accommodate their requests, but there are times when they cannot do so. A central service (CS) should only sterilize medical devices that have undergone validation testing, which demonstrates that…
Survey: 49% of adults worry about healthcare data security
Editor's Note In a survey of more than 2,000 US adults, The Harris Poll on behalf of healthcare marketing firm Scout found that nearly half are extremely or very concerned about the security of their healthcare data, the July 30 Health IT Security reports. The survey also found that 47%…
Robot-assisted vs open cystectomy
Editor's Note Robot-assisted and open cystectomies are equally effective in treating bladder cancer, this 7-year study finds. Conducted at 17 institutions, 350 patients with bladder cancer were randomized to the open (175 patients) or the robot-assisted (175 patients) surgical approach. The researchers found lower blood loss and transfusion rates and…
Cybersecurity should be high on healthcare priority lists
No homeowners willingly allow a burglar to enter their home and steal their most valuable possessions. Instead, people put locks on doors, install alarm systems, build fences, or keep big dogs. The thieves may still get in, but deterrents like these will reduce the risk of a successful burglary. Ambulatory…
Machine-learning algorithm predicts hypotension during surgery
Editor's Note In this study, researchers at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles applied machine learning to arterial pressure waveforms to develop an algorithm that predicted intraoperative hypotension 15 minutes before it occurred in 84% of cases. Two sets of data were used to build the algorithm. One set consisted…
FDA permits marketing of software to alert providers of potential strokes in patients
Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on February 13 announced that it is permitting the marketing of clinical decision support software that alerts providers to potential strokes in their patients. The Viz.AI Contact application is designed to analyze computed tomography images of the brain and send a text…
Robotics: Building a winning business case
Robotic-assisted surgery offers many potential advantages, including shorter operative time, less morbidity, and faster patient recovery. But rigorous comparisons with traditional surgical methods and cost-effectiveness analyses are still limited, and the price tag of the robot (in the neighborhood of $1 million) and annual maintenance contract (roughly $150,000) may give…
Surgical robot market poised for growth
Editor's Note A Meddevicetracker analysis expects the global market for robotically assisted surgical devices to see an 11.7% compound annual growth rate, reaching $5.3 billon by 2021, the November 10 Medtech Insight reports The market is being led by Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci systems, although the analysis predicts more competition…
FDA clears new surgical robot
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 13 cleared the Senhance System (TransEnterix Surgical Inc, Morrisville, North Carolina), a new robotically-assisted surgical device. The design of the Senhance System allows surgeons to sit at a console unit that provides a 3-D high-definition view of the surgical…
New app helps protect patients’ brains during surgery
Editor's Note A new app developed by students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM’s) App Brewery and a neuropsychologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) monitors critical brain functions during neurosurgical procedures in which patients are awake. The app, called “NeruoMapper,” assists neurosurgeons who are removing tumors by helping…
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