By Adam Dylewski

Why do people eat mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving Day but not mashed paper towels? That’s not such an odd question from a chemistry standpoint because potato and paper are almost as similar as two peas in a pod in terms of the carbohydrates they contain.

For the answer to that and other topics that could spark dinnertime conversation on Thursday, check out our latest video featuring Diane Bunce, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at Catholic University of America and associate editor for Chemical Education research for ACS’ Journal of Chemical Education.

The video focuses on traditional Thanksgiving foods, including topics such as:

• How does the pop-up timer in a turkey work?
• Why do muffins rise, even when made without yeast?
• Which antacids neutralize the most stomach acid?

Working Together to Share Records Safely, Improve Care

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Kaiser Permanente today announced an exciting program designed to improve care and services to our Nation's heroes. VA and Kaiser Permanente are launching a pilot program to exchange electronic health record (EHR) information using the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) created by the Department of Health and Human Services.

"The ability to share critical health information is essential to interoperability," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric K. Shinseki. "Utilizing the NHIN's standards and network will allow organizations like VA and the Department of Defense to partner with private sector health care providers to promote better, faster and safer care for Veterans."

This week, VA and Kaiser Permanente will send a joint letter to Veterans in the San Diego area who receive care from both institutions, to invite Veterans to participate in this first-ever pilot program. Veterans, who respond and ask to participate, will enable their public and private sector health care providers and doctors to share specific health information electronically, safely, securely and privately. This initial pilot is planned to begin in mid-December 2009.

"This partnership demonstrates the power of a large-scale EHR that safely connects several care systems. Securely digitizing American's health care information is only the first step in realizing the cost saving and improved quality benefits possible with health care technology," said Andrew M. Wiesenthal, MD, associate executive director of The Permanente Federation. "The reality is that most people receive care from multiple providers. Without the ability for caregivers and patients to have access to their data, all of the time, there is the possibility for wasted time and resources duplicating tests and procedures. Exchange of current health record data at the point of treatment also improves quality, allowing medical decisions to be made quickly, with the relevant background."

The pilot program connects Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect(R) and the VA's electronic health record system, VistA, two of the largest electronic health record systems in the country.

The program puts the highest priority on patient privacy and data security, and no exchange of information will occur without the explicit permission of the individual patient. Explicit policies and technologies to safeguard patient information are part of the NHIN. Patient information will not be shared without first obtaining their consent. Veterans' access to care will in no way be affected at either institution if they choose not to participate. Patients who do choose to participate will benefit by allowing their doctors at any one of the institutions to obtain key health record information from other participating institutions.

VA, DoD, and HHS have been working closely to create a system that will modernize the way health care is delivered and benefits are administered. DoD will be included in the next phase of the pilot program in early 2010.

 

SOURCE U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

 

Will Support Community College Training Programs, Curriculum Development, Additional Programs to be Announced in Coming Weeks

Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS’ National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, today announced plans to make available $80 million in grants to help develop and strengthen the health information technology workforce. The grants that will be made available include $70 million for community college training programs and $10 million to develop educational materials to support these programs. Both programs will support the immediate need for skilled health information technology (health IT) professionals who will enable the broad adoption and use of health IT throughout the United States.

Authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the grants are the first in a series of programs to help strengthen and support the health IT workforce. Additional details regarding the grant programs for these and other key resource and training areas will be announced over the next several weeks.

“Ensuring the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), information exchange among health care providers and public health authorities, and redesign of workflows within health care settings all depend on having a qualified pool of workers,” Dr. Blumenthal said. “The expansion of a highly skilled workforce developed through these programs will help health care providers and hospitals implement and maintain EHRs and use them to strengthen delivery of care.”

The Community College program will establish intensive, non-degree training that can be completed in six months or less by individuals with some background in either health care or IT fields. Participating colleges will coordinate their efforts through five regional consortia that span the nation. Graduates of this training will fill a variety of roles that both assist health care practices during the critical process of deploying IT systems and support these practices on an ongoing basis.

The curriculum development program will make high quality educational materials available to the community colleges so these training programs can be established quickly to meet these workforce needs.

Any U.S. non-profit institution of higher learning currently engaged in providing training in health IT that is interested in drafting curriculum or establishing a consortium that includes community colleges may apply for the grants. Information about grant applications will be available shortly at http://healthIT.HHS.gov/HITECHgrants.

“Critical to achieving the goal of the Heath Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and supporting meaningful use of health IT is the availability of a skilled workforce that understands the unique technology and management needs within a clinical setting,” added Dr. Blumenthal. “These newly funded programs are designed to equip the most qualified and advanced IT workforce in the world with the tools they need to modernize our health system.”

To learn more about the workforce plans and other HITECH grants programs visit http://HealthIT.HHS.gov/HITECHgrants.

Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS’ National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, today announced the launch of Health IT Buzz, a new blog that will allow readers to learn more about health information technology (health IT) and provide a space for consumers, providers, policymakers, and technology experts to share their ideas and concerns regarding health IT. The blog is available at http://healthit.hhs.gov/blog/onc.

Dr. Blumenthal will hold a conference call with members of the media on Tuesday, November 24, to discuss the blog and the availability of new grants to strengthen the health IT workforce.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included historic new resources to improve health care through advances in health IT and provided incentives to hospitals and providers who meaningfully use health information technology. Health IT has the potential to improve the quality of care for patients and make care more efficient.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s activities that will be discussed on Health IT Buzz include:

• Activities to advance standards to achieve interoperability, which will ensure accurate and widespread exchange of health information;
• Evaluation of new options for the certification of electronic health records;
• Exploration of health IT related regulatory and guidance initiatives to protect the privacy and security of health information; and,
• An assessment of critical privacy and security issues.

Information regarding the conference call on Tuesday is included below.

WHEN:			November 24, 2009
			9:30 a.m. EST
DIAL-IN:			888-390-0868
			Passcode: ONC

Note: This call is for members of the media only.

Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

(click to enlarge)

ESO/Y. Beletsky

Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the nearest giant, elliptical galaxy, at a distance of about 11 million light-years. One of the most studied objects in the southern sky, by 1847 the unique appearance of this galaxy had already caught the attention of the famous British astronomer John Herschel, who catalogued the southern skies and made a comprehensive list of nebulae. Herschel could not know, however, that this beautiful and spectacular appearance is due to an opaque dust lane that covers the central part of the galaxy. This dust is thought to be the remains of a cosmic merger between a giant elliptical galaxy and a smaller spiral galaxy full of dust.

Between 200 and 700 million years ago, this galaxy is indeed believed to have consumed a smaller spiral, gas-rich galaxy — the contents of which appear to be churning inside Centaurus A's core, likely triggering new generations of stars.

First glimpses of the "leftovers" of this meal were obtained thanks to observations with the ESA Infrared Space Observatory , which revealed a 16 500 light-year-wide structure, very similar to that of a small barred galaxy. More recently, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope resolved this structure into a parallelogram, which can be explained as the remnant of a gas-rich spiral galaxy falling into an elliptical galaxy and becoming twisted and warped in the process. Galaxy merging is the most common mechanism to explain the formation of such giant elliptical galaxies.

The new SOFI images, obtained with the 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory, allow astronomers to get an even sharper view of the structure of this galaxy, completely free of obscuring dust. The original images, obtained by observing in the near-infrared through three different filters (J, H, K) were combined using a new technique that removes the dark, screening effect of the dust, providing a clear view of the centre of this galaxy.

What the astronomers found was surprising: "There is a clear ring of stars and clusters hidden behind the dust lanes, and our images provide an unprecedentedly detailed view toward it," says Jouni Kainulainen, lead author of the paper reporting these results. "Further analysis of this structure will provide important clues on how the merging process occurred and what has been the role of star formation during it."

The research team is excited about the possibilities this new technique opens: "These are the first steps in the development of a new technique that has the potential to trace giant clouds of gas in other galaxies at high resolution and in a cost-effective way," explains co-author João Alves. "Knowing how these giant clouds form and evolve is to understand how stars form in galaxies."

Looking forward to the new, planned telescopes, both on the ground and in space, "this technique is very complementary to the radio data ALMA will collect on nearby galaxies, and at the same time it poses interesting avenues of research for extragalactic stellar populations with the future European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, as dust is omnipresent in galaxies," says co-author Yuri Beletsky.

Previous observations done with ISAAC on the VLT (ESO 04/01) have revealed that a supermassive black hole lurks inside Centaurus A. Its mass is about 200 million times the mass of our Sun, or 50 times more massive than the one that lies at the centre of our Milky Way. In contrast to our own galaxy, the supermassive black hole in Centaurus A is continuously fed by material falling onto into it, making the giant galaxy a very active one. Centaurus A is in fact one of the brightest radio sources in the sky (hence the "A" in its name). Jets of high energy particles from the centre are also observed in radio and X-ray images.

The new image of Centaurus A is a wonderful example of how frontier science can be combined with aesthetic aspects. Fine images of Centaurus A have been obtained in the past with ESO's Very Large Telescope (ESO PR Photo 05b/00) and with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla.

Source: ESO via esciencenews.com

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A tiny amount of blood is drawn through the chip into a single channel

Researchers have demonstrated a tiny chip based on silicon that could be used to diagnose dozens of diseases.

A tiny drop of blood is drawn through the chip, where disease markers are caught and show up under light.

The device uses the tendency of a fluid to travel through small channels under its own force, instead of using pumps.

The design is simpler, requires less blood be taken, and works more quickly than existing "lab on a chip" designs, the team report in Lab on a Chip.

It has a flexible design so that it could be used for a wide range of diagnostics.

Much research in recent years has focused on the chemical and medical possibilities of so-called microfluidic devices at the heart of lab-on-a-chip designs.

These microfluidics contain between dozens and thousands of tiny channels through which fluids can flow, and as micro-manufacturing methods have advanced, so has the potential complexity of microfluidics.

Now, scientists at IBM's research labs in Zurich have developed a cheap lab-on-a-chip that has the potential to diagnose dozens of diseases.

Bind and shine

The device relies on an array of antibody molecules that are designed to latch on to the protein-based molecular markers of disease in blood.

The antibodies are chemically connected to molecules that emit light of a specific colour when illuminated - but only when they have bound to the disease markers.

"There are devices that have been developed in microfluidics to do analysis of proteins, but most of them use active pumping and electrical components," said Luc Gervais, a co-author on the study.

"They're very complex systems; this makes them less easy to use by non-trained personnel - and it makes them a lot more expensive to manufacture," Dr Gervais told BBC News.

...and the design of the "capillary pump" affects how fast blood moves

Instead, the new device exploits capillary action, the tendency of fluids to climb through narrow channels - the same phenomenon that drives water into a sponge placed on a wet surface.

The speed with which blood is drawn through the chip can be controlled by the design of the micro-channels on the device. Those channels can be designed with incredible precision on a silicon chip - something with which IBM has significant experience.

The microchannel-patterned chip is then sealed with a special polymer called polydimethylsiloxane, to which the "detector" antibodies easily bond.

Different antibodies can be placed in a number of distinct channels, making it possible to diagnose a range of different diseases simultaneously.

Such wide-ranging studies can be done in large analysers, found in the central laboratories of hospitals.

"Typically you'll take a couple of millilitres of blood, send it to the central lab and it can take up to an hour or even more to get the results," Dr Gervais said.

"In our case you can get a quantitative analysis of the patient's blood within just a few minutes at the bedside of the patient."

What is more, it can be done with just a few microlitres of blood - a thousand times less - an amount that could be collected with a prick of a finger instead of a syringe.

While the approach will make diagnosis cheaper, co-author Emmanuel Delamarche said the key aspect of the approach is its speed.

"We are giving back precious minutes to doctors so they can make informed and accurate decisions right at the time they need them most to save lives."