First Robotic Assisted Kidney Transplant

According to Medical News Today, the first robotic assisted kidney transplant took place at Saint Barnabas Medical Center. Here's a snippet from the news story: "Transplant surgeon, Stuart R. Geffner, M.D., Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Surgery, Saint Barnabas Health Care System Renal and Pancreas Transplant Division, is the first in the world to use the Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System to successfully implant a kidney into a living recipient."

The Saint Barnabas Renal and Pancreas Transplant Division has programs at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. and Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.

Congrats to all the MIT graduates!

MIT celebrated its 143rd commencement yesterday. Congrats to all the MIT graduates! Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, delivered the principal address. Wow, has it really been that long since I graduated from MIT? In some ways it feels like yesterday when I was walking through the Infinite corridor and running along the Charles River. I miss those days at MIT.

Twitter Tips for Healthcare Execs

Have you seen my post about Twitter Tips for Healthcare Executives? It's been tweeted and retweeted many times and I hope it offers some practical tips for people who are brand new to Twitter.

Another Virtual Event: Clinical Trials Arena

Executives are traveling less and they are attending more webinars and "virtual" events. The upcoming HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo is one such example. Another example is called ClinicalTrialsArena.com (which will run from June 30 to July 1).

A total of three conference streams will provide delegates with the opportunity to attend the sessions most relevant to their specific business challenges including:

• Clinical Trial Supply
• Outsourcing Clinical Trials
• e-Clinical Trials

What do you think of the iPosture?

If you have poor posture, you may want to take a look at this little device. It's called the iPosture and it reminds you to sit up straight. How does it remind you? By giving you a tiny little zap. Now, are we going back to the days of Pavlov's dog to change behavior? MSNBC has an interesting little piece on this device. You can read it here and decide if it's worth $65. Image source: MSNBC.

Microsoft Health Engagement Survey 2009

According to Healthcare IT News, Kelton Research conducted the Microsoft Health Engagement Survey 2009 and found that consumers want their doctors and their health plans to use technology to help them get healthier. Here's an interesting snippet: "According to the survey, 66 percent of Americans are interested in receiving health-related encouragement or reminder e-mails from their health insurance company and 52 percent would be open to receiving e-mails that provide them with feedback on their health progress. In addition, 62 percent of Americans believe that personal health record services are valuable."

When I think about personal health record (PHR) services that are really popular right now, I think of Microsoft Health Vault and Google Health. Many consumers have a Google account (for Gmail, Picasaweb, etc.) and/or a Microsoft account (for Hotmail, MSN, etc.). Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for these 2 mega giants to offer PHR services. I'm waiting for Yahoo to jump in (but maybe Yahoo is waiting to get acquired by Microsoft).

More Certified EHRs Under CCHIT 2008 Criteria

A handful of new Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have been added to the list of CCHIT Certified 2008 Ambulatory EHRs. Now that the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology has released the new 2009-2010 criteria, let's see how quickly these EHR companies adapt to meet them. My guess is that everyone will be striving to become CCHIT certified because of the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) of 2009. Companies that previously thought they could get by without being certified will either need to rebuild their applications to meet the certification requirements of they will simply disappear over the next few years.

Twitter Growth: the Last 2 Months

If you've been using Twitter for several months, you may have seen all sorts of ads for ways to grow your Twitter following. Which ones work? Which ones are gimmicks?

I started using Twitter almost two months ago (roughly mid-April). On April 1, I only had 33 followers. Now I have over 8,300 followers. You can see this interesting growth chart by clicking here (TwitterCounter)

How did I do it? Did I spend money to advertise? No. Did I buy any books? No, but I found several free useful resources online. Did I invest in any type of traffic machine? No. I attribute this growth to a few things:

First, my blog traffic. If you don't have a blog and you don't post regular updates, then you may not grow this quickly. However, you can start a blog and quickly direct traffic to it by using Twitter and leveraging various social networking opportunities.

Second, some useful resources (all free) have helped me reach this type of growth. I'll write about those in a later post, so please follow my blogs.

Radon Testing in Texas

Trivia Question: When did the U.S. Surgeon General recommend that every U.S. home be tested for radon?

A recent clinical study was published evaluating radon levels near the Texas-Mexico border popularly known as Paso Del Norte. Investigators found that Radon soil gas, apartment living, and the aluminum plank wall environment of mobile homes were associated with elevated indoor radon in this area.

Did you catch that? Apartment living!

The authors also comment that "Physician's attention is invited to the potential nontrivial risk from radon, as it becomes trapped inside enclosed structures." In other words, many physicians think that radon exposure is trivial. They fail to recognize the fact that radon is the second leading preventable cause of lung cancer! Smoking is #1 and radon is #2!

Answer to Trivia Question: The Surgeon General recommends every US home be tested for radon as of January 13, 2005 (that's a strange date, isn't it?).

Grade Inflation and Medical School Admission

As a former pre-med MIT alum, I'd like to share my perspective on the topic of grade inflation. When I was a student at MIT, I knew many people who were pre-med. Your GPA is a very important factor when you apply for medical school admission. Students used to argue whether a GPA of 3.6 from MIT was better than a GPA of 4.0 from a non-so-competitive university. What if you had a 4.0 from a university that was known for grade inflation?

At MIT, students taking science courses were graded on a distribution curve. Within the class, a fixed percentage would get an A, then another fixed percentage would get a B, and so forth. If you weren't one of the top students, you weren't going to get an A. This was very frustrating for many of my peers who used to be at the top of their high school class. At MIT, they were competing against other students who were also in the top of their class. As a result, many pre-med students had less-than-stellar GPAs when they graduated. Most of them did fine with medical school admission because they did well on the MCAT.

Should college courses be graded on a curve that results in some fixed distribution of grades? Or, should all the students receive an A if they score above 90 points? Some may argue that professors may make exams too easy so that all the students score well. Others may say that it's not fair to penalize bright students who are competing against students who may be super-bright.

To learn more about college/university grade inflation, take a look at this source: http://gradeinflation.com/
I don't know about the accuracy or reliability of the data that is presented, but it should be an interesting conversation piece.

My Twitter Mosaic: 8,300 Followers!

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