Medical IT

From time to time I attend medical and bioscience professional conferences.
One recurring theme is how much room there is for improvement in medical data management and information technology. Some of the challenges include:
*getting the hodge podge of computer systems found in a large medical facility to interact and share data
*improving methods of storing, accessing & sharing patient records
*tracking treatment results.

I've recently read about some initiatives that may make a big difference.
First, WorldVistA is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with a mission to make "medical information technology better and universally affordable." WorldVistA promotes the development and extended use of an open source medical-records program called VistA. VistA was originally created at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The open source nature of the project means that it ought to be very adaptable and robust and could improve wide-spread data sharing.

Second, Microsoft Health has acquired a project called Azyxxi. According to the website, the Azyxxi software can be used to assimilate "patient-centric, financial and operational data into one unified database." This kind of approach ought to help streamline operations in a facility. The project is in a test stage and MS has partnered with some prestigious hospitals to test the system in real-world situations.

And of course Google has been at work on the problem too, with a health information storage program codenamed Weaver or Google Health. There are some screen shots of the project posted on a blog called blogoscoped. It looks like the project combines Google's search technology with a way for patients to access, store and transfer their own medical records. I like the "put the patient in charge" attitude.
I wonder if it will be compatible with the VistA project?
Google posted a video of VP Marissa Mayer describing(in very general terms)what Weaver might become(see below).
-R

Google Map of Medical ParticleTherapy Centers

I provide research and analysis to a private firm that plans to participate in a rapidly developing sector of the health services industry: ion particle radiotherapy.

The term radiotherapy refers to the medical practice of irradiating cancers. These days radiation therapy is usually accomplished by use of a compact linear accelerator that directs electrons at a tungsten target, producing high energy x-rays that irradiate the targeted malignancy.

However, a growing number of patients have been treated with radiation generated by accelerators that emit beams of larger ionized sub-atomic particles, most commonly protons or ionized carbon. Advocates for this type of radiation therapy prefer it over x-ray radiation because they say the unique physical properties of the ionized particles make it possible to better focus the radiation on tumors thereby sparing the healthy tissue nearby. The Wikipedia entry about Proton Therapy is a good resource to learn about this kind of radiation therapy, but I also recommend reading Paganetti& Bortfeld (for protons) and Amaldi & Kraft (for carbon).

A number of equipment manufacturers have now developed particle accelerators specifically for medical use and have incorporated them into complicated treatment devices which are being marketed to medical groups around the world as the centerpiece of a cancer treatment center.

These Particle Treatment Centers are growing in number, and one day on a whim I started a project of mapping the world's particle therapy centers with Google Maps. It is not an easy task as I am not familiar with many of the regions where these centers exist. I haven't done much yet, so I will have to post my efforts later, but while I was working on my map I found that one Stefan W has already been at the same task for months. He isn't always precise in some of his marks, but he has extensive knowledge of the field and has done a lot of work tracking this sector. I will certainly use his very useful map as a resource.

Check out Stefan's work here:

View Larger Map

Nikola Tesla on Studio 360

Novelists Kurt Andersen & Samantha Hunt discuss Nikola Tesla on today's Studio 360.
If you already know about Tesla, you probably won't be bored hearing the same stuff you've already know, but if you don't know much about Tesla, then don't miss this chance to learn about him from a non-technical source.
-R
The mp3 "podcast" is here:
link

PS Here is the film Edison shot of an elephant being electrocuted, a part of his crusade against Alternating Current.

False Pretenses

We are listening to Harry Shearer on Le Show sing about the "935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq" made by the Bush Administration.

He is referencing the Iraq War Card issued by the Center for Public Integrity.

I believe I will have a look, maybe you should too. If you do, let me know what you find there.
-R
link

Nice Rainbow over the Santa Ynez River

 

It was nice to get out of the house after several days of hard rain.
-R

New Reader Feed

I re-routed the web-feed for this blog through FeedBurner, as I hear that is what the cool bloggers do.

If you have already subscribed, thank you very much, but please consider an update to the NEW WAY:

 Subscribe in a reader

Thanks
-R

and it ain't a fit night out for man or beast!

the inclement weather reminds me of one of my favorite wc fields bits:
-R

the mower-in-chief

W launches his economic rescue plan from atop a standing mower.
-R
From: the Windsor Star (in Ontario):
U.S. President George W. Bush called on U.S. lawmakers Friday to agree on a stimulus package of about US$140 billion...hopes that Bush's announcement could return some optimism to the markets were short-lived, with stocks tumbling back into the red on Friday for the fourth straight day.
Link

Look Out Below!

Barbara knocked on my door to invite down to the beach to view the eucalyptus tree that fell off of the cliff behind her house. Impressive.
Luckily no one was on the beach below when it fell.
I suspect that it will not be the only casualty of this storm.
-R

Snow on the Mountains!

This last storm was cold enough to bring some snow to our own Santa Ynez mountains.
Here are some pics from between storms:


-R

The Kids Are Alright

When I was 22 I met a strange kid named Palmer (see other posts, JP related stuff is likely to show up here from time to time)who wore thick-rimed glasses, cut-off pants and played the banjo. We'd hitch rides and have adventures and he knew a bunch of Woody Guthrie songs he learned from public library record albums.

I used to write little scripted scenarios featuring fictionalized versions of our friends called "John Palmer Comix." In them, JP was a semi-magical character unbound by physical laws. I figured that one day I would get the scripts drawn up or something, but of course didn't.

Now some 18 years later there is another John (Scott) Palmer on the scene and I'll be durned if his buddies didn't cast him in a very JP Comix type way in this video. Cheap video cameras and a method for sharing it! I would have loved that when I was 20. Well, I love it now, don't I?

John Palmer airbrush work

my buddy John works as an airbrush artist for a 3D fabrication outfit in Orange County. They primarily make shooting galleries.
I like it when John sends me pictures of his workday via his camera phone.
I have lost many of them but here is a collection of photos showing off his work.
-R

Monsters!

My niece Laura-Kate would love one of these little "cotton monsters."
I wish they weren't so durned expensive!

link
-R

Tele-meeting and Tea

Here is a snapshot I took during a recent phone meeting.

When I am home, I drink green tea nearly all day, and while I have a few very nice mugs (thanks Mom, thanks Antara), my favorite vessel is a hand thrown cup my friend John Palmer gave me years ago when he was deeply immersed in learning pottery.
It fits my hand perfectly and has an elegant simplicity.
Choice.

Thank you for the cup John.

-R

Thunder Storms Today

Wow!
Intense rain storms are passing through Santa Barbara today. About an hour ago a series of thunder claps shook the cabin and sent the cat scurrying under the couch. I was about to follow her. I have rarely been so close to lightning strikes. What a thrill.
I am grateful for tele-commuting (so long as we have power) and wish that Antara could do that as well; this is no day for driving around.
According to the weather reports we are in for rain until Sunday. We'd better get more sandbags as the place is already flooding.
I didn't manage to get any of the lighting with my camera, but here is a look at the rain.

Yep, that is water alright.
-R

PS Skiing is going to be great this year.

Recent Lecture: Michael Pollan

We have been attending more lectures recently, and I'll try to post information about some of the more interesting talks.

On January 17th we listened to the amusing journalist Mr. Michael Pollan, who is doing a tour for his latest in a series of food oriented books. This one called An Eater's Manifesto , which is:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Which sounds sensible enough and is essentially the diet I follow, except that I would add "no mammals if you can manage it."

In fact most of Pollan's dietary commentary was fairly common-sense based, primarily because he feels that dietary science is too immature to provide useful guidelines, and it leads to an unreliable focus on nutritional components rather than whole-food goodness.
Perhaps so.

The portion of Pollan's schpeel that really caught my attention had to do with a pet peeve of mine, which is the decreasing availability of local food crops in restaurants and grocery shops.

Ever ask for an Idaho potato in an Idaho cafe? I have, and was told that the potatoes in the kitchen were from Argentina. The uptown Vons grocery store here in Santa Barbara sells avocados from Chile. From Chile! Southern California has a multitude of avocado orchards. Why doesn't every market in the area sell the fruit from our own trees? This makes no sense to me. It's like learning that the proverbial Eskimo imports his ice cubes.

What I learned from Pollan is that there are more wide-reaching and destructive consequences of this practice of shipping crops to where there is no need.

The example he gave is a consequence of sending cheap (government subsidized) US corn into Mexico, underselling Mexican corn farmers and putting them out of business. Many of these former farmers wind up crossing the border to work the fields in the US rather than contributing to the self-sufficiency of their own country's economy. Potentially worse, the practice has a destructive impact on the genetic diversity of the world's corn crop.

A few years ago, Pollan wrote a short article on the subject that you can read on his website.

link

First soy Roy post

Alright! I've a new blog.

Rather than send emails to folks bugging them with stuff I think is nifty, I'll just post it here, and check back to keep myself amused.

I'll also document some of the things I am up to.
What am I up to? Why I am creating the soy Roy blog at 2:11 AM on a Saturday?

To young to sleep, to old to party... lets Blog!

soy Roy