PHE - Resources

"What is Slow Medicine? In our fast-paced world, we often look for quick-fix solutions to our health challenges, not realizing that these "solutions" in fact may contribute to our problems. Most health challenges are the result of an imbalance in our bodies and lives, and most quick-fix solutions actually exacerbate these imbalances. If, instead, we take a Slow Medicine approach - identifying the root cause of our health challenges, then creating a thoughtful, step-by-step, and long-term response to it - we effectively bring ourselves back into balance. In doing so, we not only can resolve our primary complaints, but we also can benefit elsewhere in our lives, often in unexpected ways."

Recommended by DeAunne Denmark, MD, PhD: "Consumer genetic testing for health conditions has always been viewed with some skepticism by healthcare professionals. For many, direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing was synonymous with 23andMe, whose health-related products are perceived as having little to no value for health care. But the landscape for consumer-initiated genetic health testing has changed dramatically in just the last year."

Scientists like their insights captured via validated instruments that organize data into quantifiable outputs that can be measured and managed. Patients want to tell stories, share anecdotes, and talk about the qualitative factors that affect their quality of life. These disparate communication preferences have made it difficult for the two groups to engage, or for scientists to translate those qualitative stories into systematic assessments that quantify the burden placed on study volunteers.

The program rule on Interoperability, Information Blocking, and ONC Health IT Certification, which implements the 21st Century Cures Act passed in 2016, requires patients be provided access to all the health information in their electronic medical records without charge by their healthcare provider beginning April 5, 2021

Our 2020 virtual Reimagine event highlighted ISB's cutting-edge brain health research and our unique approach to studying and treating Alzheimer's and other diseases. Specifically, we featured some of our latest findings, the promise of multimodal therapies to slow and even reverse dementia, and testimony from caregivers who watched their loved ones succumb to Alzheimer's disease.

"Using an analysis from the University of Minnesota's COVID-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project, NPR has created a tool that allows you to see how your local hospital and your county overall are faring."

"New findings from a study of thousands of healthcare workers in England show that those who got COVID-19 and produced antibodies against the virus are highly unlikely to become infected again, at least over the several months that the study was conducted. In the rare instances in which someone with acquired immunity for SARS-CoV-2 subsequently tested positive for the virus within a six month period, they never showed any signs of being ill."

"A growing group of lawyers are uncovering, navigating, and fighting the automated systems that deny the poor housing, jobs, and basic services."

"Applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health care challenges, from drug packaging to early detection of breast cancer."

"Abstract Traditional screening for COVID-19 typically includes survey questions about symptoms and travel history, as well as temperature measurements. Here, we explore whether personal sensor data collected over time may help identify subtle changes indicating an infection, such as in patients with COVID-19. We have developed a smartphone app that collects smartwatch and activity tracker data, as well as self-reported symptoms and diagnostic testing results, from individuals in the United States, and have assessed whether symptom and sensor data can differentiate COVID-19 positive versus negative cases in symptomatic individuals. We enrolled 30,529 participants between 25 March and 7 June 2020, of whom 3,811 reported symptoms. Of these symptomatic individuals, 54 reported testing positive and 279 negative for COVID-19. We found that a combination of symptom and sensor data resulted in an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80 (interquartile range (IQR): 0.73-0.86) for discriminating between symptomatic individuals who were positive or negative for COVID-19, a performance that is significantly better (P 

Tyler Orion: Just a reminder, there are spots available for more participants in Reyna and Dani's upcoming Qi retreats - "Returning Home. The Journey of YiYuanTi." You can register for a single session, a full day or a 3-day virtual retreat. If you need a good way to shake off the stress of the past few months, this might be a great way to find some healing and joy.

Abstract: Protocol design complexity, and associated study volunteer burden, negatively impact patient recruitment and retention as well as overall research and development productivity. Complex protocols reduce the willingness of potential clinical trial participants to enroll and reduce retention rates. There have been few systematic assessments of protocol design characteristics to determine the burden placed on study volunteers, although such an assessment would offer a compelling opportunity to optimize trial designs and improve recruitment and retention performance. To be useful, an assessment would need to be patient-centric, and focused on the factors that influence participation throughout the clinical trial. Such an assessment would also need to accommodate the unique cost-value trade-off compared with current treatment patterns that each participant makes when choosing to participate and remain in a clinical trial. This article proposes a new methodology to quantify patient burden: the clinical trial patient friction coefficient (PFC). A case example is provided to illustrate the utility of the PFC. A number of applications for the PFC are envisioned: standardizing patient burden assessment to evaluate clinical trial design feasibility, shedding light on the impact of patient burden on clinical trial economics and performance, and conducting sensitivity analyses to identify factors that most reduce patient burden and improve the performance and efficiency of clinical trials. Key words

The COVID-19 pandemic makes it necessary for leading experts from across disciplines and geographies to come together to jointly address the challenges we are facing when coping with the disruptive nature of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is having on our healthcare system and our society as a whole. The tasks upon us are enormous and include besides decoding the virus and scaling diagnostics, tackling COVID-19 within existing healthcare systems, building health data platforms that support COVID-19 focused health care, accommodating clinical trials in the era of COVID-19, and developing functional vaccines and therapeutics. The next PMWC 2021 on January 25-27 would be a virtual conference and will touch upon these critical developments and ongoing activities while also including the regulatory and investment sides that influence clinical advancements.

Big player --- will it disrupt the market?

"Necessary rethinks and ambitious yet achievable solutions for redesigning systems to work for all people, not just some"

"In a world where you don't own or control your data, we source a copy of your medical data, structure it to make it usable and valuable, and store it in your personal record to own as your personal property."