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IMAGINEradiologyTM Attains Microsoft's Gold ISV/Software Solutions Competency
Technology Partners, Inc. (dba IMAGINE Software), a leading provider of medical billing technology, recently announced it has attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program with its flagship product IMAGINEradiologyTM, which achieved an ISV/Software Solutions Competency. The company also received a Networking Infrastructure Solutions Competency, recognizing Technology Partners" expertise and impact in the technology marketplace.
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NEJM Perspective Pieces Examine Physician Involvement In Health Reform, Congressional Progress On Reform
"Achieving Health Care Reform -- How Physicians Can Help," New England Journal of Medicine: In a perspective piece, Elliott Fisher, a professor of medicine and of community and family medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and associate director for Population Health and Policy at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; Donald Berwick, a professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health Department of Health Policy and Management and president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement; and Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, call on physicians to "lead the change our country needs" on health reform. They suggest several areas for physicians to become involved, saying that physicians should "first help to create a shared vision that could overcome doctrinal divides" and that they also must "recognize that achieving savings sufficient to cover the cost of expanded coverage need not impose a hardship on patients or providers." Finally, physicians also must help with a health reform deal that "all stakeholders can support," the authors say (Fisher et al., NEJM, 5/21).
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CPAP Adherence: Problem Solving And Coping Styles
According to a research abstract presented on June 8, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, active problem solving strategies are associated with successful use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Oncology

Continued Promise In Colon Cancer Screening Technique Shown By New Study

Recent clinical trials show that a new colon cancer screening technique created by Northwestern University researchers has a high enough sensitivity that it could potentially be as or more successful than a colonoscopy in screening for colon cancer. The technique uses optical technology, called low-coherence enhanced backscattering (LEBS) spectroscopy, to analyze tissue samples taken from the base of the rectum. Light shines on the tissue, scatters, and some of that light bounces back to sensors in the probe. A computer analyzes the pattern of light scattering, looking for the "fingerprint" of carcinogenesis in the nanoarchitecture of the cells. Researchers led by Vadim Backman, professor of biomedical engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, obtained biopsies from patients undergoing colonoscopies and found that LEBS could detect the presence of growths elsewhere in the colon even though it just analyzed tissue from the base of the rectum. The results were recently published in the journal Cancer Research. Clinical trials have been conducted in collaboration with Hemant Roy, M.D., director of gastroenterology research at NorthShore University HealthSystem. The study is a step toward clinical application of the technology, since it used tissue samples near the location where doctors may ultimately use a probe to test technology. "If you have a precancerous lesion in one part of the colon," said Backman, "even tissue that looks normal and is located far from the lesion or polyp will have molecular and other kinds of changes. It"s the biological phenomenon called the "field effect." No one can detect these changes earlier than we can." The study examined tissue from 219 patients. Results showed that for advanced polyps, the test had a sensitivity of 100 percent, which means that 100 percent of patients who had polyps were correctly identified as having them. The larger number of patients in the more recent study allowed researchers to calculate the "area under the receiver operator characteristic" (AUROC), which is an analysis of the accuracy of the test in distinguishing healthy samples from diseased samples. While the sensitivity and specificity of tests may vary based on the threshold set by researchers for diagnosis, the AUROC measures the overall efficacy of the diagnostic technique. The analysis showed an 89.5 percent AUROC for the technique. (Clinically sound tests typically have an AUROC greater than 70 percent.) The study provides a proof of concept that this sort of analysis could be a minimally intrusive colon cancer screening technique. Further studies with a compatible fiber optic probe are under way for multicenter clinical validation. The work builds on previous success in using a suite of optical technologies to detect both colon and pancreatic cancer. Along with Backman and Roy, other authors of the paper are Vladimir Turzhitsky, Young Kim, Michael Goldberg, Patrice Wilson, Jeremy Rogers, Andrew Gomes, Alexey Kromine, Randall Brand, Mohammed Jameel, Andrej Bogovejic and Prabhakar Pradhan. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Kyle Delaney Northwestern University


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