Horizontal Perspective 横顾天下

Radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) are on the rise in healthcare, helping identify patients, and reveal the location of equipment. A new Singapore initiative that uses RFIDs to automate and drastically shorten the time taken to tally surgical instruments, sponges, swaps, dressings and other disposables both pre and post surgery will increase patient safety and theatre availability.

In a Journal of the American Medical Association study, researchers found RFID tags could interfere with healthcare machines, but computer specialists in UK’s NHS said RFIDs could eventually make patients safer.

Reports:
Wi-fi and RFID used for tracking Wireless tracking systems could be used to protect patients in hospitals and students on campuses, backers of the technology said.

Tagging improves patient safety Hospital patients are used to wearing wristbands. But now those bands have gone high-tech.

Hospital risk from radio tags Lifesaving equipment in hospitals may be switched off by radio-frequency devices used to track people and machines, Dutch scientists claim.

World’s tiniest RFID tag The world’s smallest radio frequency identification tags have been unveiled by Japanese electronics firm Hitachi.

Scientists have turned to chickens to help them understand why some people are struck down by severe allergies. The birds have a “fossilised” version of the key molecule responsible for severe allergic reactions in humans.

This molecule is like a living fossil – finding out that it has an ancient past is like turning up a coelacanth in your garden pond

Original URL BBC NEWS

Parents should avoid using a dummy (commonly known asa pacifier locally) in infants who are prone to ear infections, research suggests. In a five-year study of almost 500 Dutch children, researchers found almost double the risk of recurrent ear infections in those who used a dummy.

This is a very useful piece of research that shows use of dummies in children under the age of four who have a history of ear infections is not a good idea.

Original URL BBC NEWS

A recent study estimates that a full 80% or more of all email on Internet today are SPAMs. For my own experience, 90% [of my email] are from people I do not know or in languages I do not understand.

When I was young, a friend’s mother used to pass out reprints of interesting articles in Readers’ Digest [which cost about 25 cents each from RD]. Thats not a small amount in those days, but she did it out of a desire to inform. When photocopying become widely available it was cheaper, she kept it up. I admired her noble act becase she did it at a considerable cost to herself to disseminate information from a credible source. Therein lies the difference with modern days junk mail and junk email (SPAM). The main difference are dubious source and little cost to self, the nourishment of chain email, urban legends and UCE (unsolicited commercial email), not forgetting SCAM (any email message that is fraudulent or where the sender’s identity is forged) and viruses and malwares. A recent study estimates that a full 80% or more of all email on Internet today are SPAMs. For my own experience, of the 60 or so email I receive, about 54 (that is 90%) are from people I do not know or in languages I do not understand.

So as a way, for myself, to not add to the problem, I have taken 2 initiatives: (more…)

The original report at Yahoo!

New report identifies dangerous Web domains

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology WriterWed Jun 4, 7:09 AM ET

When surfing the Internet for safe Web sites, not all domains are equal.

Companies that assign addresses for Web sites appear to be cutting corners on security more when they assign names in certain domains than in others, according to a report to be released Wednesday by antivirus software vendor McAfee Inc.

McAfee found the most dangerous domains to navigate to are “.hk” (Hong Kong), “.cn” (China) and “.info” (information). Of all “.hk” sites McAfee tested, it flagged 19.2 percent as dangerous or potentially dangerous to visitors; it flagged 11.8 percent of “.cn” sites and 11.7 percent of “.info” sites that way. (more…)

A number of you emailed me concerning my ancestral root, wondering how I managed to trace it on the Internet. Well, the truth is I did not get it from the Internet. My source was the actual narrative from my father and his sworn brother.

When I was little, my father had a sworn brother [结拜兄弟] living with us. His name is Huang Wen Pu [黄文卜] (or Ng Boon Pok in the Fujian [福建] dialect). He had followed my grandfather from China to SE Asia and was considered ‘family’ from the very beginning. (more…)

Origin url:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?orig_db=PubMed&db=pubmed&cmd=Search&TransSchema=title&term=Reducing%20patients%27%20unmet%20concerns%20in%20primary%20care%3A%20the%20difference%20one%20word%20can%20make

Jnl Gen Intern Med. 2007 Oct;22(10):1429-33. Epub 2007 Aug 3.

Reducing patients’ unmet concerns in primary care: the difference one word can make.

Heritage J, Robinson JD, Elliott MN, Beckett M, Wilkes M.
Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551, USA. heritage@ucla.edu

• CONTEXT:
  In primary, acute-care visits, patients frequently present with more than 1 concern. Various visit factors prevent additional concerns from being articulated and addressed.
• OBJECTIVE:
  To test an intervention to reduce patients’ unmet concerns. (more…)