Developments to Watch
Edited by Ellen Licking
Safety for Patients, Savings for Hospitals?
A paperless office might save money, but a paperless hospital could also save lives. Indiana is set to open the nation's first digital heart hospital at the end of this year, with help from new technology by GE Medical Systems. The $60 million, 88-bed facility will give doctors at the patient's bedside instant online access to everything from medical records to menu preferences. That could save hours that are now spent looking up prescription data, test results, and other information.
Built into the so-called GE Centricity system is sophisticated software that screens a patient's medical history and issues warnings about potential allergies or drug interactions. Medical errors are estimated to kill up to 98,000 people a year, according to a recent Institute of Medicine report. But a Dartmouth Medical School study has found that computerized doctor order-entry systems such as GE's could cut the number of serious medication errors almost in half.
Community Health Network, the prime investor in the project, also hopes the Indiana Heart Hospital will deliver big cost savings. David Veillette, CEO of the new facility, expects the technology to help the hospital handle three times as many patients with fewer staff than normally required. "With the stroke of a key, I will have the patient's history and even access to electrocardiograms," says Veillette. What's more, in the event of a computer crash or blackout, doctors will be able to retrieve data from an off-site backup computer system that has its own power supply and is updated each time new information is entered.
By Diane Brady
Robots That Take Out Land Mines
In war-torn countries such as Cambodia and Afghanistan, land mines maim or kill some 2,000 people a month. Horror over these casualties--many of them children--has spawned a wave of innovative detection technologies, including an autonomous spiderlike robot called Comet III.
The gas-powered, six-legged machine, which costs $375,000 to build, is the brainchild of Kenzo Nonami, a mechanical engineering professor at Japan's Chiba University. As it crawls along, the robot sweeps the ground with one of its sensor-packed arms. When it locates a mine, it marks the spot with a paint-filled air gun. At the same time, computers in the robot's guts parse data from the robot's mine detectors and from built-in global positioning system sensors. As the information is collected, it is continuously relayed back to a control center.
A second, simpler robot trails Comet III on its journey. Once a mine site is marked, this 'bot swoops in and remotely detonates the bomb. Nonami has high hopes for his creations, which will make their debut in Afghanistan this fall.
By Irene M. Kunii
On the Trail of Tumor Cells
Oncologists have long known that solid tumors slough off cells with surprising speed. The more aggressive the tumor, the more cells it sheds. And each cell has the potential to spawn a new tumor far away from the original site.
Scientists at the closely held Immunicon Corp., based in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., think they can take advantage of this shedding process to provide an early warning on tumors. They have developed an exquisitely sensitive test that detects small numbers of tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream. First, blood cells are mixed with a suspension of tiny magnetic particles. The particles are armed with specialized tags that glom on to any cancer cells in the sample. When the sample is placed in a magnetic field, the cells bound to the particles are separated from the rest and can then be analyzed. In trials, the test proved sensitive enough to detect as few as 10 cells in a 7 milliliter vial of blood.
The company is conducting clinical trials to see if the technology can be used to monitor how well breast-cancer patients respond to different therapies. If the cancer is under control, the number of tumor cells picked up by Immunicon's test is expected to decrease.
How to Neutralize Luggage Bombs
In December, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was knocked from the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb hidden in a suitcase in the plane's cargo hold. That spurred efforts to develop a blast-proof cargo container. Now, Telair International has unveiled the first commercial container to pass the Federal Aviation Administration's internal-explosion tests.
The Rancho Dominguez (Calif.) company's container is basically an overgrown soft-sided suitcase. The sides are a composite based on DuPont's Kevlar, the plastic fiber from which bulletproof vests are woven. When the FAA set off test blasts, the container "just puffs out like a large balloon," says Telair General Manager Dennis K. Staver. Initially, the container will cost "substantially more" than a standard aluminum unit, he concedes, but the premium will diminish as production grows.
By Otis Port
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Copyright 2002 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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