Tech

Among a group of children's hospitals, nearly 20 percent of admissions and one-quarter of inpatient expenditures were accounted for by a small percentage of patients who have frequent recurrent admissions, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA.

Boston, Mass. - Hospital readmissions are increasingly viewed as an indicator of quality of care. If patients receive appropriate discharge care planning and coordinated outpatient follow-up when leaving the hospital, they should transition safely home without the need to return to the hospital.

For the past 40 years, a miniature model environment called "Tiny Town" has been one of the methods used to teach Secret Service agents and officers how to prepare a site security plan. The model includes different sites -- an airport, outdoor stadium, urban rally site and a hotel interior -- and uses scaled models of buildings, cars and security assets. The scenario-based training allows students to illustrate a dignitary's entire itinerary and accommodate unrelated, concurrent activities in a public venue.

Someday, that potted palm in your living room might go from green to white, alerting you to a variety of nasty contaminants in the air, perhaps even explosives.

The stuff of science fiction you say? Not so, says a Colorado State University biologist whose research is funded in part by Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), as well as by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and others.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers say their supercomputer, named Novo-G, is the world's fastest reconfigurable supercomputer and is able to perform some important science applications faster than the Chinese supercomputer touted as the world's most powerful.

In November, the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, for the first time ever, named the Chinese Tianhe-1A system at the National Computer Center in Tainjin, China as No. 1.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Feb. 15, 2011 – Researchers from Korea report that, compared with conventional sedation, balanced propofol sedation (BPS) using propofol in combination with midazolam and meperidine, provided higher health care provider satisfaction, better patient cooperation, and similar adverse event profiles in patients undergoing therapeutic endoscopic procedures. This is the first prospective study of BPS in direct comparison with conventional sedation.

Chemical releases, suicide bombers, air and subsurface threats: the U.S. Secret Service needs to be prepared to handle these real-life incidents. Training to respond to such incidents, however, has been more theoretical than practical.

Now, with help from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), the Secret Service is giving training scenarios a high-tech edge: moving from static tabletop models to virtual kiosks with gaming technology and 3D modeling.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Breast cancer screening with MRI can detect invasive cancers missed on mammography in women who've undergone chest irradiation for other diseases, according to a new study published online and in the April print edition of Radiology.

DARIEN, Ill. – A study in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that poor sleep quality correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, greater pain severity, increased fatigue, and greater functional disability in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The study suggests that addressing sleep problems via pharmacological or behavioral interventions may have a critical impact on the health and lives of patients with RA.

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 15, 2011 – The risk of deadly hantavirus outbreaks in people can be predicted months ahead of time by using satellite images to monitor surges in vegetation that boost mouse populations, a University of Utah study says. The method also might forecast outbreaks of other rodent-borne illnesses worldwide.

Lavender oil could be used to combat the increasing incidence of antifungal-resistant infections, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology. The essential oil shows a potent antifungal effect against strains of fungi responsible for common skin and nail infections.

nt Sinai School of Medicine finds that Medicare costs at the end of life are influenced more by patient characteristics, such as ability to function, the severity of the illness, and family support than by regional factors, such as the number of hospital beds available. The study will be published February 15 in The Annals of Internal Medicine.

BOSTON – Over the last several decades, the prophylactic use of acid-suppressive medications to help prevent gastrointestinal bleeding (GI) in hospitalized patients has increased significantly, with some studies estimating that as many as 40 to 70 percent of all medical inpatients are given these drugs at some point during their hospitalization.

But, for patients who are not critically ill, the actual incidence of GI bleeding has not been well investigated.

Automatically referring patients with heart disease to cardiac rehabilitation—when followed by a discussion between patient and clinician—was associated with an increased rate at which patients use this beneficial service, according to a report in the February 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.