All Features
Bill Kalmar
None of us, I suspect, are fond of visiting our physician, making an unexpected trip to the hospital emergency room, or undergoing an operation. From time to time, we hear about the unanticipated results of a botched operation where the wrong leg was removed or an incorrect diagnosis resulted in…
Lysosomal storage disorders may not sound as dire as diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, but to the people that suffer from them, life can be a nightmare. In fact, three of the primary disorders in this category—Gaucher’s Disease, Fabry Disease, and Pompe Disease—aren’t only characterized by a…
Nancy Fullbright
Alan Kent, president and CEO of Meadows Regional Medical Center in Vidalia, Ga., was a champion for implementing lean principles in the hospital’s emergency department. Photo by Gary Meek Emergency rooms in the United States aren’t known for their…
Patrice L. Spath
Measurements of patient care continuity should encompass all of the components of health care delivery—structure, process, and outcome. “Structure” in health care delivery refers to the way a health care entity organizes itself and sets up operations. Health care structures include elements such…
Wini Hayes
A well-respected surgical group requests a new surgical device that they swear will revolutionize how surgery is performed in your hospital. The price tag is well into seven figures, with significant annual maintenance and training costs. A competing hospital is advertising to consumers that they…
The use of drug product is widespread and touches all aspects of our daily lives without our knowing it. From aspirin to cardiac medicine and from hormones in animal feed to over-the-counter dietary supplements, these products are used every day. What they all have in common are specific government…
Carolyn Clancy
Choosing a hospital that scores well on quality can make it easier and safer for you to recover from a serious event, such as heart surgery, or a routine one, such as having a baby. Doing a little homework before you choose a hospital can do more than give you peace of mind.
As a physician, let…
Carolyn Clancy
Walk into many stores and you’re bound to be impressed by the quality of digital cameras, TVs, cell phones, and other consumer electronics. Every year the quality of these devices improves by leaps and bounds, and consumers often pay less as products improve.
I wish the same could be said about the…
Walk into many stores and you’re bound to be impressed by the quality of digital cameras, TVs, cell phones, and other consumer electronics. Every year the quality of these devices improves by leaps and bounds, and consumers often pay less as products improve.I wish the same could be said about the…
A thorny question lies at the heart of meaningful health care reform. How much is human life worth? New research from Wharton and Stanford based on Medicare kidney-dialysis data shows that the average figure—$129,090 per additional year of quality life—is higher than prior studies have shown.…
Carolyn M. Clancy M.D.
If you’ve ever watched the popular “MythBusters” program on the Discovery Channel, you know that many supposed truths are based on old, incomplete, or simply incorrect information.The same can be said about beliefs about the quality of health care in America. How many times have you heard that more…
Patricia C. La Londe
Cardinal Health Alaris Products, which makes pumps and disposables used during infusions, was in critical shape in the late 1990s and needed to address improvement on all fronts. The prescription included improvements in customer satisfaction and in the company’s finances, which required the…
Bill Kalmar
Advancing into that mystical category of “senior citizen” brings with it certain perks. Simultaneously becoming a senior citizen, retiring, and joining the ranks of Social Security recipients is a financial trifecta.I retired in 2003, and when I made that phone call to add my name to the millions…
Mike Richman
Dr. Tomas Gonzalez, senior vice president and chief quality officer for Valley Baptist Health System of Harlingen, Texas, is a busy man. Not only does he direct quality process improvement at Valley Baptist’s two hospitals, he’s also a physician and a certified Master Black Belt. Valley Baptist…
The cost of poor quality in health care ranges from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Until recently, however, there have been few financial consequences for health care providers’ failure to address the underlying root causes. This article describes Medicare’s new policy of not…
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research reported recently in the journal Advanced Materials describes a potentially promising strategy for encouraging the regeneration of damaged central nervous system cells known as neurons.The technique would use a biodegradable polymer containing a chemical group that mimics the…
Abby Vogel
Tushar Sathe holds a vial of dual-function beads embedded with iron oxide and 600 nanometer emission quantum dots, while Shuming Nie looks on. The other vials contain beads embedded with quantum dots that emit light at other wavelengths. photo by Gary Meek…
Georgia Institute of Technology
For people with impaired mobility and reduced ability to sense injury, the risk is high for pressure ulcers that can develop when they sit or recline in one position too long or wear a poorly-fitted prostheses for an extended period.
Clinical data collection helps drive the researchers’…
This figure shows the 3-dimensional dose distribution of the prostate upon completion of implanted seeds. Based on patient tests, Lee’s inverse planning system uses 15% fewer seeds. Photo by Eva Lee A California medical software company has launched…
CardioMEMS engineer Michael Fonseca uses a laser to separate pressure sensors in the company’s clean room facility in the ATDC Biosciences Center located at Georgia Tech’s Environmental Science and Technology Building. Photo by Gary Meek After…
Georgia Tech student Ashley Palmer, Ph.D., conducted experiments to validate a new cartilage-imaging technique developed by associate professors Marc Levenston and Robert Guldberg in the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering. On the computer…
Despite the best efforts of pharmaceutical manufacturers, drug labeling is one of the greatest challenges in clinical trials, involving a complex, time-consuming process to meet strict regulatory requirements and obtain wide-ranging approvals from individual countries. That labels must…
Researchers Mark Prausnitz and Robyn Schlicher use a confocal microscope to study cells whose membranes have been opened by the application of ultrasound. Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek Researchers have shown how ultrasound energy can…
James M. Anderson
An ABC News/Washington Post survey in 2003 found that for the first time, 54 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with the overall quality of health care in the United States. In 2006, the Commonwealth Fund released results of an international survey that measured 37 areas of quality…
Research engineer Phil Santangelo works in professor Gang Bao’s cell culture facility in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University in Atlanta. Photo courtesy of: Phil Santangelo…