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Lend-a-Hand

"This device is going to change lives," said Sue Seeger, who suffered a stroke 15 years ago, just before her 21st birthday.

Seeger is referring to Lend-a-Hand, an assistant device inventor and entrepreneur Michael Duncan created especially for physically challenged individuals. He owns Evenpar Enterprises.

Seeger said she always wanted to learn to play golf. Knowing Duncan was an inventor and golf enthusiast, Seeger asked him if he could invent a device that would allow her to play.

Lake City's Michael Duncan created the Lend-a-Hand to help his friend Sue Seeger play golf.
	PHOTO: Seeger

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Agenda Set for Vets

From infozine.com

Obama, who served on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, plans to reverse the 2003 ban on enrolling modest-income veterans into the VA system, allowing all veterans the opportunity for care, according to the agenda on veterans. The administration also plans to continue the fight to end employment discrimination for Guardsmen and Reservists.

Additionally, the administration aims to improve the process of transitioning from active duty to civilian life for military members leaving the service or returning from deployment. To improve the benefit decision system, the administration will look at hiring additional claims workers with an improved accountability and training criteria, according to the agenda.

Also, the administration plans to launch new programs and expand proven programs to prevent homelessness among veterans, as well as to explore the possibility of a national "zero tolerance" policy to ensure no veterans end up on the streets.

As they works to make VA a national leader in health care reform, the agenda says, administration officials will explore ways to improve mental health studies, polytrauma care, prosthetics development, spinal cord injury treatment and women's health.

Source

There's no holding (back) the Mayo now!

The Mayo Clinic wasn’t sure what to expect from social media when it gave it a test run four years ago.

Things like iPods, MySpace and blogs had exploded onto the social scene, and businesses were looking to cash in. But the health care industry had other considerations, and more rules to play by.

The interest was not exclusively marketing and advertising, but rather how to use the technology to transform the access, delivery and dissemination of health information. And then there were other issues like patient confidentiality and related privacy issues.

Mayo started with a podcast, largely unsure of what it was doing. There was no staff dedicated to new media, so a few of the public affairs employees hastily podcasted a 60-second broadcast radio feed normally provided to radio stations.

Then they waited. Then they watched as a few listeners grew to some 76,000 in one month. They knew they were on to something.

Mayo Clinic has come a long way in just a few years, since adding a Facebook page with more than 3,000 friends, a YouTube channel with videos of doctors talking about illness, treatments and research, a health blog for consumers and another for media to improve the process of medical reporting. It’s also creating “secret groups” on Facebook to connect patients to others with similar illnesses, an area it hopes to expand in the future.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in the brave new world of Health 2.0.

The Internet in its infancy, or 1.0, was all about accessing information.
Think WebMD.

But where Web 2.0 describes the onslaught of user-generated content like Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers, Health 2.0 is defined by the use of social software and its ability to promote collaboration between patients and the rest of the medical industry.

Having a company Web site is so five years ago.

Social media — the umbrella term for blogs, social networks, photo video and podcasts, and other user-generated mediums — is the new era. And the possibilities are seemingly endless.

Try a virtual existence in Second Life. The Centers for Disease Control, Partners HealthCare System and CIGNA Corp. all have active pilots to test scenarios and study behavior in the virtual world.

Then there’s Medscape, a social network for doctors that has a format similar to MySpace or Facebook and includes 100,000 physicians. It’s similar to its predecessor, Sermo, and both are exclusive to verified physicians.

Nemours, the Jacksonville-based children’s health system, has used social media in the process of creating its upcoming hospital in Orlando.

It established a blog for its family user group to make recommendations on the design of the hospital, which breaks ground next month.

Nemours also has a two-year-old viral media campaign featuring parent testimonials and podcast speeches by Chief Executive David Bailey.

Read the rest

HealthSmart Announces American CareSource Holdings Contract Extension

January 22, 2009 -- HealthSmart Holdings, Inc. announced that it has reached a new agreement with American CareSource Holdings, Inc. (ACS) to extend the term of their existing agreement through 2012 and creates a deeper partnership between the two companies by making ACS the exclusive provider of ancillary services.

ACS has been the primary ancillary group health network solution for HealthSmart since 2005 and now influences approximately 1.7 million insured lives.

As the exclusive provider of ancillary services, ACS will be better positioned to drive additional market share to their participating providers, thus enhancing the value proposition for their contracted ancillary care givers.

American CareSource Holdings, the first national, publicly traded ancillary care network services company, offers a comprehensive national network of approximately 2,500 ancillary service providers at over 25,000 sites through its subsidiary, Ancillary Care Services.

This market is estimated at $574 billion, and has grown to 30% of total national health expenditures. These providers offer services in over 30 categories, including laboratories, dialysis centers, free-standing diagnostic imaging centers, non-hospital surgery centers, as well as durable medical equipment such as orthotics and prosthetics, and others.

Gifts to doctors must be disclosed under U.S. bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Drug and medical device manufacturers would need to publicly disclose all doctor payments and gifts exceeding $100 per year under U.S. legislation unveiled Thursday.

Companies would face penalties as high as $1 million for knowingly failing to report the payments if the bill by Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley and Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Herb Kohl becomes law.

The effort is meant to shine light on the industry's lavish gifts to doctors, which range from pricey dinners to golf vacations, as well as consulting and speaking fees.

Critics say the payments may skew doctors' decision making.

"The goal of our legislation is to lay it all out, make the information available for everyone to see, and let people make their own judgments about what the relationships mean or don't mean," Sen. Grassley said in a statement.

The information would be posted online for public viewing, the senators said.

Sen. Kohl said he was confident the legislation, called the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, would pass in the current Democratic-led Congress.

A previous version did not advance in the last congressional session. It required public reporting only if payments topped $500 per year.

Some manufacturers had supported the earlier bill, and companies including Eli Lilly & Co. and Merck & Co. Inc. pledged voluntary disclosures.

Sen. Kohl chairs the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Sen. Grassley is the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Sen. Grassley said he is considering if reporting requirements should also apply to industry payments to medical organizations, hospitals, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacists and pharmacies, continuing medical education groups and medical schools.

Physician Payments Sunshine Act

If you're going through hell, keep on going...

Petty Camp has a new spokesperson!

"...Doctors never expected Abbi to survive a car wreck five years ago that left her with a severed spinal cord, resulting in paralysis from the waist down, and severe internal injuries that nearly took the Lee County youngster's life.

With the assistance of a high-tech piece of orthopedic equipment, a Reciprocal-Gate-Orthosis, Abbi is able to walk.  While it's not easy, Abbi finds time to walk every day. The more functional way of getting around is by wheelchair, which she uses most of the time.

Abbi spent the past weekend in her wheelchair as her mother accompanied her to Nashville for the 2009 Sound and Speed Festival, a fundraiser which supported both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

For more than three years, Abbi and her family have been visiting Petty's camp, designed specially for children with disabilities and their families...."

"The first time we went for a family weekend, I was completely amazed at the camp and all it had to offer children with life-threatening illnesses and other disabilities," Donna said. "I remember as we drove through the front gates I was overwhelmed with emotions. I cried on and off again that first weekend there. Our family was surrounded by other families that face everyday life events with a child that has disabilities. They know as a parent from a firsthand experience what it is like to watch your child do the best they can to fit into their surroundings."

More info on the Petty Camp, click here.

Getting married? Winter can help!

(I don't know why they just don't let Kevin Carroll renew his vows.)

If you're looking for a free wedding...

From Capital News 9 online.

Winter the dolphin miraculously survived entanglement in a crab trap line four years ago, but due to the serious injuries, sadly lost her tail. The team at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium rescued her and with the help of a specially designed prosthesis, she is undergoing physical therapy up to three times a day, to relearn how to swim properly.

"The technology that has gone into this tail has helped Winter tremendously and has also helped a lot of human amputees as well," said Abby Stone, head trainer.

As a result of her disability, Winter will spend the rest of her life in the aquarium, swimming her little heart out in a protected environment.

"She's a little animal who shouldn't have survived but she did and she just is very spirited, a great personality, one of the most energetic little dolphins I've ever met," said Stone. Thanks to a complete fluke, Winter will continue to move forward to inspire everyone who meets her.

Here's a D'Elia's Deal you don't want to miss to win a free wedding for 100 guests at Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

With the "Wedding of a Lifetime Contest," one couple will be chosen to get married on a platform over the main dolphin pool on Valentine's Day in the company of Winter and her pals

Read more about Winter on this blog.

ENTER HERE

Hanger Acquires

Hanger Orthopedic Group of Bethesda acquired:

• Maine Artificial Limb Co.
• Orthotics Center
• Rocky Mountain Orthotic-Prosthetics Center
• Riessen's Orthopedic and Prosthetic Services
• First Coast Orthotics & Prosthetics
• Orthopedic Rehabilitation Products

adding patient care centers to its existing markets in Maine, Louisiana, Colorado, Washington and Florida, plus stock and bill rehabilitation services to its Colorado market. They total $8.9 million in annual revenues.

Carolina Canines

The video U.S. Army veteran Joey Bozik sent to Carolina Canines with his application for a service dog showed just how difficult it is for Bozik to put on and remove his prosthetic legs.

There is strong suction where the socket attaches to the stump, and with only one arm, Bozik struggled to create enough leverage to remove the artificial limbs. Enter Joshua, a rescued black lab/retriever mix who’s probably about 2 years old.

On Monday, Jan. 5, Bozik and Joshua met for the first time, but Joshua had been preparing for the moment for nearly a year, training with a military prisoner in the brig at Camp Lejeune through the Carolina Canines for Veterans program. The program is the first of its kind in that the service dogs are trained by military prisoners....

On Thursday, Jan. 8, when Joshua was officially placed with Bozik, Hairston played two videos — Bozik’s application video showing the difficulty of removing his legs,
and another showing Joshua helping with the same task. The task is similar to others Joshua had already learned, like tugging on a rope pull to open a door or refrigerator.

“As far as I know, that’s never been done before,” Hairston said.

In the video, as Bozik pushed from his end, Joshua pulled from the other. Joshua is vocal when he works, Hairston said, explaining the dog’s grunts and rumbles as he tugged....

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The greatest casualty is being forgotten.

Watch this.