Category: Healthcare Innovation (Page 2 of 6)

Group Members: Victor, Rinni, Claire

Sources

Kuehn, Bridget M. 2014. “Payers Probe Ways to Help Curb Risky Prescribing.”JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association 311, no. 11: 1097-8.

Bridget Kuehn, a staff science writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association, presents the problem that doctors face of prescribing medication too frequently to patients.  Kuehn highlights how the lack of oversight of physician prescribing practices has fueled prescription drug abuse and thousands of overdose deaths. She also presents the exorbitant cost of prescription drug abuse on the nation’s healthcare system as a whole.  Kuehn explains different ideas that have been proposed to track the prescribing practices of doctors and mitigate the risks of prescription drug abuse. We will use this source to present the need of our healthcare innovation, which has the potential to curb prescription drug abuse and mitigate the risks for both doctors and patients.

Hersberger, Kurt E, Boeni, Fabienne, and Arnet, Isabelle. 2013. “Dose-dispensing Service as an Intervention to Improve Adherence to Polymedication.” Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology 6, no. 4: 413-21.

Hersberger, Boeni and Arnet are professors from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Basel in Switzerland.  These three authors present the issue of nonadherence, or the process of patients not taking their medications as prescribed. They present how different dose-dispensing methods have been developed to improve patient adherence in an effort to improve health and reduce the costs associated with nonadherence.  We will use this source to present how similar dispensing systems have been developed in order to to ensure patient adherence to prescribed medication. Our healthcare innovation will aim to build upon these advancements to ensure more security and prevent intentional or unintentional overdoses of medications. We will attempt to develop an automated pill-dispensing system that is secure and produces maximum adherence by eliminating the chance of human error or tampering as much as possible.

Koba, Mark. 2013. “Deadly epidemic: Prescription drug overdoses.” USA Today, July 28, 2013. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/28/deadly-epidemic-prescription-drug-overdoses/2584117/.

Mark Koba is a senior editor at CNBC whose publications include articles on topics of health care.  In the article, Koba presents the massive uptick in deaths associated with the current prescription drug epidemic.  Koba explains how this epidemic has been fueled by the massive demand for prescription drugs in the United States, as millions of drug prescriptions are written annually.  We will use this source to support the crucial need for our healthcare innovation to help combat this prescription drug crisis. Our innovation will allow medications to be administered and taken in a manageable and safe way that will prevent addiction and overdoses.  Our innovation could have the potential to save countless lives.

Healthcare Innovation: “Brace” to provide support/comfort and remedy aches in the neck/back in the general population while also reducing the symptoms of scoliosis to those who need it.

Group Members: Demir McRae and Weihang Ke

Asher, Marc and Douglas Burton. 2006. “Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: Natural History and Long-Term Treatment Effects.” BMC Journal of Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders 1, no. 2. doi:10.1186/1748-7161-1-2.

BMC Journal of Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders is quite literally an academic and peer-reviewed journal dedicated to research concerning the disease scoliosis as well as other spinal disorders.  In this article, the authors define exactly what is considered scoliosis and explain how the disease (of unknown cause) is treated.  This article will be extremely useful as it also displays the need for a simple, low-cost remedy for this spinal condition.  The authors are both researchers from the University of Kansas and are specialists in this field.  Their input will be valuable as our group designs our healthcare innovation.

Martin, Brook, Richard Deyo, Sohail Mirza, Judith Turner, Bryan Comstock, William Hollingworth, and Sean Sullivan. 2008. “Expenditures and Health Status Among Adults with Back and Neck Problems.” The Journal of American Medical Association 229, no. 6: 656-664. doi:10.1001/jama.299.6.656.

The Journal of American Medical Association is a credible, peer-reviewed academic journal that will provide plenty of background on the healthcare problem my group plans on tackling with our 3-D printed healthcare innovation.  The article itself displays a need for a low-cost and efficient solution to something that plagues many Americans in an aging population: back and neck problems.  The authors are researchers looking to examine trends in expenditures for back and neck problems.  This article will be especially useful in order to show why a lower-cost remedy is needed for those with back and neck problems.  Alternatively, there is a very similar article that I also found from The Journal of American Medical Association that serves relatively the same purpose.  That article is cited below:

Mafi, John, Ellen McCarthy, Roger Davis, and Bruce Landon. 2013. “Worsening Trends in the Management and Treatment of Back Pain.” The Journal of American Medical Association 173, no. 17: 1573-1581. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.8992.

Saint Louis, Catherine. 2013. “Study Affirms Benefit of Back Braces as Scoliosis Treatment.” New York Times, Sep. 19, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/health/new-study-lends-conclusive-support-to-a-scoliosis-treatment.html.

The New York Times is a credible news source that caters to a general audience.  Despite this, the Times often provides a cohesive, comprehensible summary of a more complex subject, especially in their health and science sections, which is where this article is found.  In the article, the author underlines the benefits of using a back brace to remedy the symptoms of scoliosis and emphasizes that the use of a back brace can avoid potentially dangerous surgeries for scoliosis patients.  This article once again displays the need for our healthcare innovation as it gives a personal anecdote of someone diagnosed with scoliosis and was embarrassed to wear her brace but also wanted to avoid surgery.  One of our aims for our healthcare innovation is to provide a brace for scoliosis patients that is small enough to be unnoticeable.  Thus, this article shows why there is a need for said innovation.

Healthcare Innovation

Group Members: Mark Kashani and Karishma Malhotra

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Allen, Frederick M. 1945. Refrigeration in general surgery of limbs. The American Journal of Surgery 68, Nr. 2: 170-184. doi:10.1016/0002-9610(45)90101-2, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0002961045901012 (Zugegriffen: 10. Oktober 2018).

This peer reviewed journal on the American Journal of Surgery from Science Direct, written by Frederick Allen, mainly encompasses the theme of refrigeration when looking at severed pieces of the body. It talks about the effects of this process on the limbs of the body and how it has been used in surgery as well. Whether reattaching severed limbs or not, refrigeration is vital to keep the body parts safe and sound until the doctor and patient agree on what to do with it. This is another source that helps to prove how vital our innovation is. Without it, patients may not be able to properly keep their limbs cold until the get to the hospital delaying the process and putting their body parts at risk.

Popular Article

Glowatz, Elana. 2018. Stitching A Severed Limb To A Different Part Of The Body: How It Works And Why We Do It. Medical Daily. https://www.medicaldaily.com/stitching-severed-limb-different-part-body-how-it-works-and-why-we-do-it-406611 (Zugegriffen: 10. Oktober 2018).

This popular article, written by Elana Glowatz on Medical Daily, encompasses the topics of potentially attaching a severed limb to another part of the body. This article references another article from Slate News and uses many of the authors points on how to first secure the body parts so tissue and nerve damage won’t set in before any reattachment surgery. I used this as a source to promote the importance of our healthcare innovation because if a body part is not first preserved correctly, there can be no way surgeons reattach it, even to another part of the body is possible.

Popular Article:

Hosier, Fred. 2010. “What to do When Body Parts Falls off.” Safety News Alert, September 20.

The author of the popular article, Fred Hosier, a writer for the Safety News Alert (OSHA) outlet, was able to give more in depth information on a topic many of us are not well versed in. By giving a simple step by step procedure on what to do in the unfortunate situation a body part gets severed off, we are reminded of what not to do and what to do. Hosier goes into the specifics of what to do with limbs as well as teeth that may have fallen out. This article once again helps to support our healthcare innovation because it reminds readers not to put body parts directly into contact with ice, for it will have damaging effects on the nerve endings.

Claire Ng

Members: Rinni and Victor

Healthcare Innovation: Automatic Pill Dispenser to prevent drug overdose

National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Overdose Death Rates.” August 09, 2018. NIDA. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is a U.S. federal government research institute that aims to educate the public on the effects and science behind drug abuse and addiction. The institution works to advance science on the causes and consequences of drug abuse and addiction to improve overall public health. They also do clinical research and study the social factors, behavioral, and neurobiological effects involved. This source particularly focuses on describing the responsibility doctors have when giving out prescription drugs. The article also explains the structure and organizations that help monitor the giving out of prescription drugs, like the PDMPs, and other basic key words that will further support our study. The article also references several ways the government has tried to prevent prescription drug abuse which can be reference in our healthcare innovation.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. “How Can Prescription Drug Misuse Be Prevented?” NIDA. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/misuse-prescription-drugs/how-can-prescription-drug-misuse-be-prevented.

Like the previous source, the National Institute on Drug Abuse is a U.S. government institution that works to develop and educate the public on drug abuse and addiction in order to create a better world for public health. This source mainly revolves around stats and data regarding death rates due to overdose on drugs and prescription drugs — the most recent study from August of 2018. The source provides several graphs and tables for the provided data. This source will back up our healthcare innovation with such concrete data when describing the effects of drug abuse and why our innovation is so important.

Chinneck, A, Thompson, K, Mahu, IT, Davis-MacNevin, P, Dobson, K, Stewart, SH. 2018. “Personality and prescription drug use/misuse among first year undergraduates.” Addictive Behaviors (87): 122-130

The most notable author is Annie Chinneck. She is a PH.D student at Dalhousie University in Canada. She studies the psychological factors that affect alcohol abuse, gambling, prescription drug misuse, and more. She has won awards for her these studies and has published a previous article from 2014 involving the connection between depression and gambling and their ties with drug abuse. This article focuses on the causes and effects prescription drug abuse has on “emerging adults” from the ages of 18-25 year olds. The study focuses on those attending college/university and the greater risk they may have. The article also focuses on the different types of prescription drugs that are misused. This article will further support our healthcare innovation since it will give more specificity on the types of prescription drugs that are misused as well as the psychological effects that come with it.

Group Member: Demir and Justin

Healthcare Innovation Idea: Back Brace

McAviney, J, and T Pappas. 2009. “Treating adult scoliosis and back pain with the SpineCor Pain Relief Back Brace.” PMC at U.S. National Library of Medical National Institute of Health. 2009;4(Supply 2): O67. doi: 10.1186/1748-7161-4-S2-O67

The U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, as the name indicates, is a very prestigious and credible organization. J McAviney and T Pappas, the authors of this primary source, are both doctors who have lots of knowledge about scoliosis in London. Both of them have conducted many types of research and published lots of scientific articles, including “Risk factors for Age-related Macular Degeneration in a Greek population: The Thessaloniki Eye Study” by Pappas T and “Determining the relationship between cervical lordosis and neck complaints” by J McAviney. This article, indeed, talks about the seriousness of adult scoliosis and how it can be successfully treated using the SpineCor brace. Since our 3D printed innovation is to design an object that could support one’s back or neck after a long time of sitting, we can use the SpineCor brace as a reference, which provides us a basic concept of how the object would look like.

Janicki, Joseph A, and Benjamin Alman. 2007. “Scoliosis: Review of diagnosis and treatment.” PMC at U.S. National Library of Medical National Institute of Health. 2007 Nov; 12(9): 771-776. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532872/

The authors both have profound knowledge in the field they are experts at. Joseph A Janicki is an assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery in Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Dr. Benjamin Alman is a professor of Orthopedic Surgery in the University of Toronto. Therefore, both have very significant science and medical backgrounds, which prove their credibility to publish the articles. The article, on the other hand, deeply explains about scoliosis and describes the treatments and methods to help alleviate back pain. Before we even start designing our device, we should have known some knowledge about scoliosis so that we could design accordingly. Also, since this article describes the treatment in detail, we will be able to know the elements needed for the innovative object, designing an effective one.

Emery, Gene. 2013. “Braces Help Avoid Surgery in Teens with Scoliosis.” Reuters. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-braces-surgery-teens/braces-help-avoid-surgery-in-teens-with-scoliosis-idUSBRE98I0ZO20130919

Gene Emery is a journalist and news writer for Reuter. He has been specifically focusing on the medical field. He has been continuously publishing articles in this website that are health-related. In this article, he talks about the effectiveness of Braces to avoid scoliosis. We know how scary and serious scoliosis can be, so through his article, he appeals to the general public by advocating the need for the brace as he explains the example of how braces can help in our lives. Our group can use this article as a motivator. Because it indicates the urgent need for the braces and negative consequences scoliosis could bring to us, we will be inspired to design this object and make our lives better even if it is very complex to make one.

1. 2017. “Accidental Overdose of Medicine.” Healthdirect | Healthdirect. Accessed October 9, 2018. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/accidental-overdose-of-medicines.
   • HealthDirect is the national public health information service in Australia. It is a credible source that is funded by the Australian government, and has health information that is openly accessible to Australians and the rest of the world. It is a non-profit organization that seeks to improve public health and health awareness. This article does three important things: First, it defines what an accidental overdose is. Second, it describes the ways in which accidental overdoses on pills occur, and finally, it lists the symptoms of poisoning and overdose. This article is helpful to our health care innovation because it describes the ways in which overdose happens. Using this information, we can design a better innovation that addresses many of the ways in which accidental overdoses can occur. For example, the article mentions that people forget that they have already taken their dose, which means that our innovation can have a counter/lock system after each dose.
2. Green, Traci C., and Edward F. Donnelly. 2011. “Preventable Death: Accidental Drug Overdose in Rhode Island.” Medicine & Health Rhode Island 94 (11): 341–43.
   • Green and Donnelly are two people with scientific backgrounds in health and medicine. Dr. Green, a Harvard graduate, is an epidemiologist who specializes in emergency care and drug abuse. The journal is a medical journal, and is a reputable source that has been publishing since 1917. This article is about accidental overdoses in Rhode Island, and how the number has increased significantly. Green and Donnelly analyze statistics, and provide the reader with a lot of quantitative data on which demographics are hospitalized for accidental overdose, including gender, age and race. This information will be helpful in developing our healthcare innovation in that we will know which demographics need this technology. For example, children suffer from accidental overdoses. These statistics also further stress the need for the innovation.
3. Lieber, Mark. 2018. “Opioid Overdose among Children Nearly Doubles.” CNN. Accessed October 9, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/health/opioid-overdose-children-doubles-study/index.html.
   • Mark Lieber is a journalist who has wrote for CNN extensively on articles concerning “Global Health.” CNN is a broadcasting channel with an online presence as well; overall, it is a very reputable source. This article discusses the ways in which children accidentally overdose on pills and medication, and how this has increasingly become a problem in our country. This source will be helpful because it will add more reasons to why this health care innovation is needed.

Group: Abishek, Mark

Peer Reviewed Journal

Brubacher, Jacob W., and Charles D. Jennings. “Fingertip Injuries and Amputations – OrthoInfo – AAOS.” OrthoInfo. July 2016. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/diseases–conditions/fingertip-injuries-and-amputations.

In the article “Fingertip Injuries and Amputations” that relays information directly from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, the authors discuss all major details of taking care of an amputated finger from its immediate required care to the physical examination by the doctor to the complications that may arise. The article first shares a diagram of the finger and explains the different parts that could suffer an injury. Next, the article covers first aid and the difference between exposed bone injury and injury without exposed bone. Injury in which the bone is not exposed may be able to heal on its own in due time, however exposed bone injury often required reconstruction surgery. Furthermore, the article places emphasis on how not to handle these injuries: including the fact that the amputated finger should never be put in contact with ice directly because that can lead to additional complications. I plan to emphasising this main point in explaining the need for my healthcare innovation in my project. I plan to use the credibility of the authors and the journal reviewers to my advantage as they are well qualified individuals. Jacob W Brubacher, MD, received his degree from Yale University School of Medicine and had been practicing Orthopedic surgery for over eight years. Charles D Jennings, MD is a board certified orthopedic surgeon who studied at the University of Kansas.

Popular Media Article

Scheve, Tom. “Can Body Parts Be Reattached after Accidental Amputation?” HowStuffWorks. July 18, 2011. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/can-body-parts-be-reattached2.htm.

This article is written by Tom Scheve, a freelance writer who studied English and Journalism at the University of Georgia, is credible because it cites many credible sources including the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Fox News, and Time Magazine. This article thoroughly discusses body part transplants and plastic surgery. However, I will be focusing on the part of this article that speaks to the preservation of derailed body parts. Scheve mentions, “Limbs can be reattached as many as four days after amputation if refrigerated” (1) whereas if proper care is not given to the body part, it only remains viable for 12 hours. The immediate care provided to the body part is of the utmost importance because it decides the success rate of the reattachment surgery and the chance of complication occurring. This concept further emphasizes the need for our healthcare innovation that advocates for the proper refrigeration of derailed body parts in ambulances.

Peer Reviewed Journal

Shauver, Melissa J., Takanobu Nishizuka, Hitoshi Hirata, and Kevin C. Chung. “Traumatic Finger Amputation Treatment Preference among Hand Surgeons in the US and Japan.” Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. April 2016. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5079431/.

I chose this peer reviewed article to support my healthcare innovation because it compares and contrasts the methods of amputation treatment in the United States and Japan. I was able to gain a wealth of knowledge about the requirements of each course of treatment and what condition the amputated body part needs to be in. This also helped expand my background knowledge on amputated body parts that will help me build my argument for my healthcare innovation. The authors of this article are all from their respective Departments of Surgery at their accredited universities.

Group Members: Weihang, Justin

Weinstein, Stuart L., Lori A. Dolan, James G. Wright, Matthew B. Dobbs. “Effects of Bracing in Adolescents with Idiopathic Scoliosis.” New England Journal of Medicine 369, no. 16 (2013): 1512-1521. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1307337

These authors are all doctors(of medicine or philosophy) which shows their qualification to speak on the subject. This articles speaks to the benefits of bracing scoliosis. We would use the data in this article to help support the use of this innovation. 

Choudhry, Muhammad Naghman, Zafar Ahmad, Rajat Verma. “Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.” The Open Orthopedics Journal 10, (2016): 143-154. doi: 10.2174/1874325001610010143 

One of the authors works in a hospital and the other two are a part of an orthopedic research unit. This provides a decent introduction to the subject of scoliosis. It provides a history and definition of scoliosis.

Saint Louis, Catherine. “Study Affirms Benefit of Back Braces as Scoliosis Treatment.” New York Times, September 19, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/health/new-study-lends-conclusive-support-to-a-scoliosis-treatment.html

This author has a wide range of topics she writes about so she may not be specifically qualified to talk about this topic in particular. However, she is referring to an article in a popular journal. This also speaks to the benefit of braces as a treatment for scoliosis. It also briefly talks about how studies of braces; effectiveness has produced inconsistent results. 

Team Members: AJ Johnson, Karishma Malhotra

Popular Article:

Cohen, Elizabeth. 2010. “What to do When Body Parts Fall Off.” CNN News, September 16.

The Author of this popular article is Elizabeth Cohen, CNN’s Senior Medical Correspondent. Cohen is the lead reporter for CNN’s Health, Medical, and Wellness Unit. In addition to numerous articles, Cohen is also the author of several novels regarding medical advancements. This article touches upon the procedures one should follow in case of a freak-accident that led to a severed part of the body. Cohen ranges from fingers and toes to teeth and eyeballs. The main point of the article, which connects to our innovation, is that a severed finger or toe must never touch ice; it should be properly treated in order to stay intact and be capable of being reattached to the human body. This article will help us express both procedures that should and should not be done in the event of a freak-accident.

Peer-reviewed Journal:

Partlin, MM, J. Chen, and A. Holdgate. 2008. “The preoperative preservation of amputated digits: an assessment of proposed methods.” The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. 65:127-131. DOI:10.1097/TA.0b013e31817c556a.

The authors of this journal all work in the emergency department at Liverpool Hospital in New South Wales, Australia. This journal is very unique because it provides results from an experiment in which different temperatures and time intervals are used in testing fresh chicken feet. The goal was to prove what temperature, time, and gauze enabled most tissue to be preserved. The authors provided many different values, which show positive and negative results. I believe that this journal can prove to be useful for our innovation because it can help us decide the applicable temperatures we want our device to range from.

Peer-reviewed Journal:

Abzug, Joshua M., and Scott H. Kozin. 2014. “Pediatric Replantation.” The Journal of Hand Surgery. 39:143-145. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhsa.2013.09.002

The authors of this journal work in the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The study focuses on traumatic amputation that happens to children. A very useful aspect of this journal is that it has vivid images, which may be beneficial to our research and understanding of the innovation at-hand. The article talked about immediately sterilizing the wound and how to properly gauze it up. It also goes into detail about the common method of placing the amputated body part in a waterproof bag, then putting the bag in ice. Lastly, the author states that it is imperative to NOT allow the body part to touch ice or dry ice, as it can result in thermal necrosis.