The Ellsworth Medical Clinic in rural Wisconsin used its EHR to monitor patients with hypertension. It has seen a 30 percent improvement in hypertension control since 2007. The Million Hearts Initiative, which calls the clinic a model for small practices, featured it in a video.

In a video and article in the New York Times, Bill Nye the Science Guy explains the motivation for starting his television crusade to inspire children about science and his initiative to take on naysayers of developments such as global warming. His goal? To change the world.

In a world-first study, researchers from The University of Queensland are using innovative pulse-reading technology to measure blood pressure to reduce cardiovascular disease.

The Wall Street Journal and its broadcast arm, the News Hub, explored emerging technologies designed to improve medication adherence. The approaches include “digital pills” that include digestible sensors and pill bottles that can alert patients when it is time to take their meds or indicate when a medication has expired.

Mechanical engineering students at Rice University in Houston developed the PediPower, a shoe-mounted generator that converts motion into energy as a power source for cardiac devices. Their initial goal was to make a generator that provided a reliable and constant source of power. The next step is to make PediPower smaller and lighter. Houston-based Cameron, which is collaborating with the Texas Heart Institute to design pumps for an artificial heart, approached the students with the project.  

Stephen Page, PhD, a licensed physical therapist, is leading a research project that uses smart phone technologies to track movement in stroke patients to determine their progress with rehabilitation. The approach relies on accelerometers, sensors in smart phones, video games and even air bags that detect motion. Page is an associate professor at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

eHealth Technologies announced today that Massachusetts General Hospital has selected the new eHealth Connec® Referral Portal to provide referring physicians easier access to their facility and a clear, single process to submit new referrals.  The site also allows the referring provider to receive key updates about their patients’ appointments and the results of the referrals.

Michael J. Ackerman, MD, PhD, and Pedro J. Caraballo, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., described in a video the development of an alert system that flags QT-level prolongation that may indicate a patient is at risk of sudden cardiac death. In a paper published in the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, they reported the institution-wide system is a noninvasive marker of mortality. Ackerman said the next step is to determine if the alert modifies physician behavior to provide potentially lifesaving interventions.