Category Archives: Preventative Medicine

By ETHAN MARSHALL

After three years of focused fundraising efforts by community members, Glen Cove Hospital has begun renovation and expansion of its $5.5 million outpatient Family Medicine Center. Located on the ground floor since the Family Medicine Center was established in the 1970s, the practice will be relocated to a new modern space on the third floor.

The centers clinical staff currently provides personalized medical services to patients of all ages. It offers primary, prenatal and pediatric care, preventative services as well as behavioral health and gynecological services to underserved members in the community and other residents.

The expanded, 6,660 square-foot Family Medicine Center is expected to open in late spring 2020. It would serve more than 18,500 patients annually, representing a 40 percent increase in patient volume.

We have a long and proud history of providing high-quality health care services to members in need in our community, said Barbara Keber, MD, chair of family medicine at Glen Cove Hospital and vice-chair of family medicine at Northwell Health. Our new Family Medicine Center will not only accommodate more patients, but the renovation will create a welcoming and modern environment as well as upgrades that enhance clinical care and collaboration.

The Family Medicine Center will feature 12 exam rooms, bedside ultrasound machines, a procedure room, laboratory and medication room and modern reception and seating areas. A focal point of the space will be a large glass-enclosed area, which will offer central viewing and monitoring of the center. It will also provide much-needed space for clinical team members to collaborate and huddle before patient visits in a confidential setting.

The center is a designated patient-centered medical home that recognizes the coordinated, comprehensive medical care provided by the interdisciplinary team. Clinicians include physicians, residents, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers and other health care professionals. Many of the centers staff are bilingual to better communicate with the areas Spanish-speaking community.

Glen Coves Family Medicine Center has the distinction of also being one of the original family medicine residency training programs in the United States. More than 230 board-certified family physicians have received training at Glen Cove Hospital.

We are extremely grateful to the hospitals Advisory Council and caring individuals in the community who spearheaded the fundraising campaign for the Family Medicine Center, making this vision into reality, said Kerri Anne Scanlon, RN, Glen Cove Hospitals executive director. The state-of-the-art Family Medicine Center has been designed to provide quality medical care and to deliver the best patient experience possible.

Nancy Taylor, a member of the Advisory Council and longtime supporter and volunteer at the hospital, said, Weve been working towards this goal for a long time. The Family Medicine Center was in dire need of renovation.

A resident of Locust Valley, Taylor said she was delighted when hospital leaders asked if shed donate to the Family Medicine renovation project through her family charity, the David S. Taylor Fund. Taylors late husband, David S. Taylor, served as Board of Trustees chair of the hospital from 1988-1990 and later Board of Trustees chair of the North Shore Health System from 1994-1995. Mrs. Taylor and her family have had a long history of giving back to Glen Cove Hospital. She volunteers once a week at the hospitals main reception desk and her sister volunteered in the Emergency Department for 33 years. David Taylor worked as an orderly in the hospital when he was young.

To date, the community fundraising efforts have totaled $3.5 million. This will benefit Glen Cove Hospital as part of Northwell Healths $1 billionOutpacing the Impossible campaign, which supports capital projects, improves hospitals and clinical programs, advances research and funds endowment for teaching and research initiatives.

Story submitted by Northwell Health.

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Glen Cove Hospital begins expansion and modernization of Family Medical Center - ROP Common - The Island Now

World AIDS Day was observed on Dec. 1, bringing worldwide attention to an epidemic that continues after nearly 40 years, and still needs to be eradicated. About 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV today, and roughly 15 percent of them are unaware they are infected.

The good news is that through the use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and the drugs associated with this treatment (including Truvada, and the newly FDA-approved drug for PrEP, Descovy), there is a brighter hope for ending new cases of HIV.

PrEP is targeted at individuals who are not infected by HIV and want to prevent infection. A daily regimen of two oral antiretroviral medications (emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide) in one pill, when taken correctly, reduces the risk of acquiring HIV by up to 97 percent.

PrEP should be used as part of a comprehensive strategy, including adherence to daily administration and safer sex practices, including condoms/barrier protection, to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV.

This strategy of prevention is critical to achieving the goal of lowering infection rates in years to come, and the goal of ending the HIV epidemic within 10 years.

The newly approved medication also has the benefit of being cleared for men with lower kidney and liver functionality range, good news for those in the LGBTQ community who are ages 55 and up, because they now have an option for HIV prevention that wont interact with other medications.

Its important to note, though, that the newest drug option is not available for women, because there have not been any trials in women to date, leaving only one option for women taking part in PrEP.

At Corktown, where more than 125 patients are currently taking PrEP medication, we teach that prevention isnt only about taking the pills. It requires commitment over the long haul to have the proper effect.

PrEP is marketed toward specific populations, including African-American and LatinX men who have sex with men, transgender women of color, people in a relationship with an HIV-positive partner, and IV drug users. I believe PrEP should be for anyone who asks for it. We make sure to understand each persons story, then determine if PrEP is the best fit for their preventative treatment.

We also recommend follow-up care as the PrEP program continues, so we can identify any financial or social barriers that may prevent the patient from following through on their treatment.

There are also cost-savings programs available that can make both medications affordable to patients with financial hardship, which is often a barrier to getting treatment to those who need it.

In the end, the battle against HIV is winnable, and a large part of that success will come through preventive medicine programs to limit new infections.

Especially among at-risk populations, spreading the word about prevention medication, including the new alternative, will be an essential part of making the number of new HIV cases as close to zero as possible in the years to come.

Dr. Latonya Riddle-Jones is medical director at Corktown Health Center in Detroit, and an assistant professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Corktown Health Center is the only health clinic in Michigan focused on treating LGBTQ patients. Visitcorktownhealth.org.

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HIV prevention drugs will play key role in stemming disease - The Oakland Press

Such conservative bromides ignore the evidence that SNAP beneficiaries by and large do not want to depend on government difficult circumstances in their lives make it necessary and that the program does not dissuade them from working. Depriving them of assistance will only exacerbate their poverty, and cost Americans in other ways.

The policy change, effective April 1, will oust nearly 700,000 people from food stamps nationwide and cut $5.5 billion in SNAP spending over five years. Approximately 35,000 of those affected live in Massachusetts. They are underemployed adults who have no children and are not disabled generally, a group of people not eligible for the benefit. But a longstanding waiver program has allowed the Commonwealth and other states to enroll such people in SNAP for more than three months in a three-year period if they live in localities with high unemployment or a tight job market. A recent study revealed that nationwide this group of childless individuals has received an average of $181 every month in SNAP benefits due to the state waivers.

The new rule will impose stricter criteria for issuing the state waivers. The government wants to move more able-bodied SNAP beneficiaries toward self-sufficiency and into employment. These waivers have long been seen a weakness of the program a loophole exploited by low-income individuals who simply dont want to work at a time when there are 7 million job openings nationwide and the unemployment rate is at 3.6 percent.

But, the Trump Administration is ignoring . . . the connection between geography and employment opportunities, said Georgia Katsoulomitis, executive director of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, in a statement. "For example, this rule will disproportionately harm communities of color that are already struggling with economic instability and limited employment opportunities resulting from decades of explicit and implicit labor and housing discrimination.

Requiring some recipients of SNAP benefits to work more is a dramatic change from longstanding policy, one that Congress itself rejected twice last year when it was proposed in Trumps budget and in the farm bill the latter by a bipartisan House vote of 330-83. The new rule also rests on a grave misconception about the food assistance program: SNAP is intended to address hunger and help people rise out of poverty, not to compel them to work.

Indeed, there is no evidence that the new SNAP rule will result in more people gaining steady jobs. Instead, research has shown that nondisabled, low-income individuals face a complex set of barriers to self-sufficiency that have nothing to do with whether they get food stamps. Some cycle in and out of low-paying jobs or can only get irregular hours, while others are noncustodial parents who support children in their extended family as grandparents or uncles.

Whats more, Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, executive director of Childrens HealthWatch at Boston Medical Center, warns that reducing SNAP benefits could increase health costs in the long run. SNAP acts as important medicine across the lifespan, she said. Food insecurity and hunger are highly correlated with negative health outcomes, such as depression, diabetes, and anemia. One study showed that participation in SNAP was associated with a reduction in health care expenditures by roughly $1,400 per person per year. In Massachusetts, health care costs related to food insecurity and hunger were estimated at $2.4 billion in 2016. Food, in this way, is like preventative medicine or primary care.

The move to curb the SNAP state waiver program is misguided, and ought to be reversed by the next president. Denying help getting food to the poor wont do much to help them find full-time work. More likely, it will have a damaging impact on public health, which ultimately affects us all.

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Trumps holiday gift: Cutting off help to the poor - The Boston Globe

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine is predicting that by 2030 nearly 1 in 2 adults in the country will have obesity.

The report, funded by the New York-based JPB Foundation and based on 20 years of data from more than 6 million adults, also says this prevalence will be higher than 50 percent in 29 states and not below 35 percent in any state.

It says its projections are similar to previous estimates showing that 57 percent of children 2 to 19 years of age in 2016 are projected to have obesity by the age of 35.

It projects that nearly 1 in 4 adults will have severe obesity by 2030, and that this will be higher than 25 percent in 25 states.

Rates for Massachusetts for obesity by 2030 are projected at 42 percent and at 20 percent for severe obesity.

Authors of the report on projected state-level prevalence of adult obesity and severity are from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as well as George Washingtons Milken Institute School of Public Health in D.C.

Their projections were based in part on adjusted figures from an annual telephone survey during the years 1993 and 1994 and 1999 through 2016 of more than 400,000 adults in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia that provides information on body-mass index as well as National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

Body Mass Index categories were defined according to guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Besides projecting levels of obesity by state, researchers also tracked by other factors including by income.

The report projects by 2030 severe obesity will be the most common BMI category in the country among women, black non-Hispanic adults and low-income adults, that is, according to the report, household income of less than $50,000.

It also projects that severe obesity will be the most common BMI category in 44 states among adults with an annual household income of less than $20,000.

It called its projections on severe obesity especially worrisome as this is associated with even higher mortality and morbidity and health care costs.

It called for more cost effective preventative interventions for achieving and maintaining meaningful weight loss.

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Report: 1 in 2 adults obese by 2030 - MassLive.com

December 17, 2019, 3:54 AM

5 min read

Andrew Yang released his health care plan Monday morning, a proposal with elements of Medicare for All, but without the public option plan that even moderate candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have committed to implementing.

"To be clear, I support the spirit of Medicare for All," Yang said in outlining his plan, before adding, "Swiftly reformatting 18% of our economy and eliminating private insurance for millions of Americans is not a realistic strategy, so we need to provide a new way forward on healthcare for all Americans."

In a statement to ABC News, a Yang campaign spokesperson said, "The U.S. is on track to spend a total of $60 trillion on healthcare between 2022-2031. Andrew Yangs plan will cut about $9.7 trillion over this time period by tackling the root problems in the system, including prescription drug costs, utilizing tele-health, decreasing unnecessary medical services, diminishing billing and insurance related waste, minimizing doctor burnout, improving end of life care, and reducing poverty.

His "A New Way Forward" plan includes pieces already in his competitors' plans, but it differs dramatically from other candidates in several key ways too.

"Yangs proposal does not include provisions targeted at expanding insurance coverage," said Matt Fiedler, a fellow with University of Southern California's nonpartisan Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang takes a selfie with Mindi Callison of Ames after playing basketball with congressional candidate J.D. Scholten in Ames, Iowa, on Dec. 12, 2019.

Fiedler pointed to Yang's suggestion that coverage cannot extend to everyone in a practical way, and said that's not likely correct.

"While reducing the underlying cost of care is a meritorious goal, it is also quite feasible to achieve universal coverage even as we continue to work on reducing costs," said Fiedler.

While Yang's six-pronged plan doesn't work to expand the current system, it does attempt to revamp it in a way that weaves in his previous policy pitches.

Just last week, Yang released his plan to lower prescription drug costs. His health care plan builds on some of his earlier promises to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable by directing the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Justice to work together in bringing criminal cases against pharmaceutical execs who use misleading marketing tactics.

Yang also commits to investing in telehealth, information and services given over the phone or internet, noting that the demand for physicians is outpacing the available supply.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang arrives before he plays basketball with former congressional candidate J.D. Scholten in Ames, Iowa, on Dec. 12, 2019.

His third prong also touches on the demand for doctors, and proposes forgiving their student loans and moving them through a fee-for-service system to a salary system.

He also wants to do more to shield doctors from malpractice lawsuits arguing, "We need to allow doctors to practice medicine that prioritizes their patients health without legal fear in the back of their minds."

Yang's last points focus on preventative care, and putting health care resources into suicide prevention, mental health checkups, handicapped patients and treatment for HIV/AIDS patients.

He closes the plan by explaining how he would minimize lobbyist influence in the health care industry, saying in part, he will refuse to hire anyone who previously worked at a pharmaceutical industry as a lobbyist.

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Yang draws contrasts with rest of field on health care plan - ABC News

EIT Health has announced that its 2020 Wild Card is now open for applications for teams and individuals, inviting Europes most-promising health innovators to submit stand-out proposals in the areas of womens health and digital therapeutics.

Applications for the Wild Card programme are open until 9 February 2020.

One of the most comprehensive programmes in the European healthcare innovation landscape, Wild Card will first create and then invest up to 2 million into two ventures that push the boundaries in the challenge areas.

Now in its third year and with four start-ups already launched, the Wild Card programme seeks to support the most promising teams and turn their ideas into businesses.

Each year the Wild Card programme carefully selects two challenges which represent a pressing health issue for European citizens. For 2020 the first challenge set to Europes health innovation community is womens health. Innovators are urged to devise cost-effective, technology-driven solutions to provide specialised care for women.

The second challenge is digital therapeutics, which asks innovations to harness the power of digital solutions to prevent, manage and treat medical conditions or disease.

Commenting on the womens health challenge, Jorge Fernndez Garca, EIT Health Director of Innovation explains: Addressing womens healthcare is vital. A historical female under-representation in research has led to womens health issues being overlooked or under served.

In Europe, its estimated that women spend almost 12 years of their life in ill health, they are more likely to develop adverse reactions to medication, and cardiovascular disease, traditionally considered as a threat to men, is the greatest mortality risk for women in Europe alongside cancer.

Womens health is rich territory for Europes health innovators, we look forward to supporting breakthroughs that can make a real impact here.

Commenting on the digital therapeutics challenge, Garca, comments: Were looking for innovators who can create digital therapeutic solutions that enhance the delivery and quality of care. Although its a relatively new field, its an area that holds great promise to deliver breakthroughs in therapy areas where medicine has so far struggled, as well as tackling the challenge of shifting healthcare towards a more preventative rather than reactive approach.

Were looking for innovation that can show a distinct and measurable benefit for patients and healthcare systems.

The most promising applicants will attend a hackathon to build or complement their team and write their business plan. Up to six teams will then be selected to progress to a 10-week Business Model Validation phase.

Since the launch of Wild Card in 2018, EIT Health has invested 8 million in four ventures who put forward game-changing proposals to tackle some of Europes most significant health challenges.

Entries for the 2020 Wild Card close on 9th February 2020, further information about the programme, the challenges and how to apply can be found at https://wildcard.eithealth.eu/.

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4 million investment for innovations addressing women's health and digital therapeutics - Health Europa

Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to reliably predict the age of people based on the levels of 373 proteins circulating in their blood. The team created this physiological clock by analysing blood samples from 4263 study participants aged 18 to 95.

The Stanford investigators built their blood plasmaprotein clock by looking at composite levels of proteins within groups of people instead of in individuals, and they say that the resulting formula can usually estimate a persons age to within three years. The team found that a subset of just nine or 10 proteins could form the basis of a very accurate age test, with the assistance of machine learning.

Those whose predicted age was significantly below their real age were remarkably healthy for their age. Nearly two-thirds of the proteins that the researchers found changed with age were significantly more predictive for one sex than for the other.

Overall, the researchers observed that there are three waves of changes in human plasma proteome throughout life occurring around ages 34, 60 and 78. This is because the levels of many proteins remain constant in the human body for a while and then undergo sudden shifts up or down, rather than slowly changing or remaining constant throughout life.

Identifying plasma proteins that promote or antagonise ageing could lead to more targeted and preventative therapies, the researchers suggest. In the future, they say, plasma proteome changes could be identified that predict subjects transitioning to disease. The Stanford team notes that Alzheimers disease is of particular interest because there are currently no blood-based markers for that health condition, and it can produce clinical symptom as much as 20 years after disease onset.

Alireza Delfarah from the University of Southern California, who studies specific mechanisms in ageing, agrees that the new research findings are significant. It is a big step forward in identifying plasma markers of ageing in the future, potentially we can just take plasma samples from people and do a test based on some of these proteins that have been identified, and probably need to be further validated, he says.

However, the Stanford team acknowledges that this work is still in its infancy, and that clinical applications are likely five to 10 years away.

Lizzy Ostler, an expert on the chemistry of human ageing from the University of Brighton in the UK, says the Stanford study is appropriately and rigorously designed, and offers valuable insights into age-related changes. We have known for some time that chronological and biological age are not the same thing, she says. Lifestyle and genetics alter the rate of ageing in the same way that the way you drive your car will change its condition irrespective of mileage.

Broad spectrum interventions that could slow the biological clocks of humans need to be prioritised by global licensing authorities and funders in order to ensure that the field of anti-degenerative medicine comes of age and helps people live healthy lives for longer, Ostler suggests.

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Blood test picks out proteins that accurately predict age - Chemistry World

EIT Health has announced its 2020 Wild Card is open for applications for teams and individuals, inviting health innovators to submit proposals in the areas of womens health and digital therapeutics.

Now in its third year and with four start-ups already launched, the Wild Card programme seeks to support promising teams and turn their ideas into businesses. Wild Card will first create and then invest up to 2 million into two ventures.

Each year the Wild Card programme selects two challenges which represent a pressing health issue for European citizens. For 2020 the first challenge set to Europes health innovation community is Womens Health.Innovators are urged to devise cost-effective, technology-driven solutions to provide specialised care for women.

Commenting on the womens health challenge, Jorge Fernndez Garca, EIT Healthdirector of innovation said: Addressing womens healthcare is vital. A historical female underrepresentation in research has led to womens health issues being overlooked or underserved. In Europe, its estimated that women spendalmost 12 years of their life in illhealth, they are more likely to developadverse reactions to medication,and cardiovascular disease, traditionally considered as a threat to men, is the greatest mortality risk for women in Europe alongside cancer.Womens health is rich territory for Europes health innovators, we look forward to supporting breakthroughs that can make a real impact here.

The second challenge is digital therapeutics, which asks innovations toharness the power of digital solutions to prevent, manage and treat medical conditions or disease.

Commenting on the digital therapeutics challenge, Fernndez Garca, said: Were looking for innovators who can create digital therapeutic solutions that enhance the delivery and quality of care. Although its a relatively new field, its an area that holds great promise to deliver breakthroughs in therapy areas where medicine has so far struggled, as well as tackling the challenge of shifting healthcare towards a more preventative rather than reactive approach. Were looking for innovation that can show a distinct and measurable benefit for patients and healthcare systems.

The most promising applicants will attend a hackathon to build or complement their team and write their business plan. Up to six teams will then be selected to progress to a 10week Business Model Validation phase.

Entries for the 2020 Wild Card close on 9February 2020. Information onhow to apply can be found athttps://wildcard.eithealth.eu/.

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EIT Health opens applications for women's health and digital therapeutics ideas - Med-Tech Innovation

Advanced technologies have caused a significant impact on the development of the healthcare industry. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in particular, have allowed for significant breakthroughs in life science and healthcare research and treatments, whether thats automating critical but repetitive tasks to free up time for clinicians, through to automatic speech recognition for faster disease diagnosis, or the ability to create synthetic controls for clinical trials.

But with 75 per cent of healthcare enterprises planning to execute an AI strategy next year, theres a far greater opportunity round the corner to further unleash its potential. Here, six experts from leading healthcare organisations including Brainomix, AiCure, HeartFlow, Cambridge Cognition, Oxford Brain Diagnostics and Zebra Medical Vision, share their views on what 2020 holds for the industry.

Brainomix - Dr Michalis Papadakis, CEO and Co-Founder of Brainomix

As highlighted earlier this year, the NHS aims to become a world leader in AI and machine learning in the next five years. In 2020, we expect to see this become more apparent in practical terms with, AI technologies becoming the predominant driving force behind imaging diagnostics.

With around 780,000 people suffering a stroke each year in Europe, and 7.4 million people living with heart and circulatory diseases in the UK, it is imperative we find ways to reduce the burden on healthcare organisations and improve time to disease detection.

The number of MRI and CT scans for example is already on the rise, and AI has the ability to read scans as accurately as an expert physician. Utilising these new technologies to review scans for any disease can reduce patient wait time and ease the burden on medical staff. There will be greater recognition next year of the value of AI in augmenting human performance.

AiCure - Mario Nacinovich, Global Head, communications & marketing, AiCure

The greatest challenges in deploying AI solutions in healthcare vary widely by application. In 2020 (and beyond), it comes down to ensuring that back-end processes gain greater efficiencies. From an administrative standpoint, making it easier for AI to integrate with existing technology infrastructure will certainly help adoption. From a societal standpoint, building greater trust in AI and protecting personal healthcare data will continue to be among the omnipresent challenges.

Within the clinical trials industry specifically, we can expect to see a number of key challenges in 2020 which technology - including AI - will help address.

Once identified and recruited, one of the biggest challenges in clinical trials are keeping subjects engaged and optimised to treatment. Medication non-adherence has been shown to increase variance, lower study power, and reduce the magnitude of treatment effects. AI will play a critical role in understanding how a drug is performing in real-time and how patients are responding in clinical research including medication adherence and their behaviour.

The adoption of new technologies in 2020 and beyond have the potential to provide clinicians with improvements in overall patient engagement, outcomes, quality of life, practicality in use, and reduce clinical development time and associated costs.

HeartFlow - Charles Taylor, Founder, HeartFlow

For me, 2020 will accelerate the development of the digital healthcare industry; a hybrid sector where medicine and cutting-edge technology converge to propel patient care forward. Were starting to see more interest and investment in this fascinating field.

Its an exciting time to be leading a company like HeartFlow, which is truly bilingual in healthcare and technology. Right now, were able to use medical imaging and AI to give physicians unprecedented insight into potentially life-threatening restrictions on blood flow within the body. But weve only just scratched the surface of what integration between information technology, computers and healthcare can achieve, and the expectations are high. I look forward to seeing how these challenges are met in the year ahead.

Cambridge Cognition - Francesca Cormack PhD, Director of Research & Innovation at Cambridge Cognition

Digital biomarkers are the new frontier. The upward trajectory of digital capabilities over the last decade, combined with the widespread adoption of devices, has augmented biological markers with digital measures of disease progression.

In our field, it is now possible to use AI to enrich cognitive test scores with metrics that indicate cognitive effort i.e. the unique features of a patients voice that reveal when they are finding it particularly challenging to perform a task. Patients who are ostensibly performing within normal ranges but struggling to maintain that performance are likely suffering with the early stages of decline and could benefit from interventions that might slow or prevent further neurodegeneration.

Over the next year, we expect to see improvements in the precision of digital biomarkers for rapidly detecting neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimers disease. The ultimate goal is to integrate digital biomarkers into clinical care and improve patient outcomes.

Oxford Brain Diagnostics - Dr Steven Chance, CEO at Oxford Brain Diagnostics

Dementia remains highly complex in nature and requires extensive collaboration to succeed. Urgent action to address these challenges is needed today. By 2050, 152 million people will have the disease globally.

Unlocking new biomarkers, leveraging smarter science and deploying funds where they are needed most may give the industry a chance to defeat this terrible condition. We must re-focus our efforts and move quickly now towards examining the disease much earlier, allowing novel biomarkers to measure the progression more accurately and develop specific and targeted drug treatments for the range of dementias that exist.

National level support to develop more holistic brain health and screening programmes will demystify the brain, rationalise the fear of dementia, and ensure patients and families have the opportunity to embrace interventions in clinical trials earlier in their lives.

Zebra Medical Vision - Eyal Gura, CEO and Co-Founder, Zebra Medical Vision

With two billion people joining the middle class, a rising aging population and the growing shortage in medical experts, AI will be critical in enabling communities to provide productive and consistent health services. From medical imaging analysis to sensors and smart alerts, we are going to witness more improved and personalised care.

In 2020 we will see AI in deployment of hundreds of health networks globally and impact on millions of patient lives. AI has the power to transform patient care and empower radiologists to help with patient diagnosis. Our mission is to teach the Zebra software how to automatically interpret and formulate insights from medical images. Having a single AI solution that integrates seamlessly into existing workflows at an affordable rate, will support radiologists in delivering better patient care. Our platform allows healthcare institutions such as Intermountain Health, University of Virginia and Apollo hospitals to identify patients at risk of disease and initiate preventative treatment pathways.

Dr Michalis Papadakis, CEO and Co-Founder of Brainomix Mario Nacinovich, Global Head, communications & marketing, AiCure Charles Taylor, Founder, HeartFlow Director of Research & Innovation at Cambridge Cognition Dr Steven Chance, CEO at Oxford Brain Diagnostics Eyal Gura, CEO and Co-Founder, Zebra Medical Vision

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2020 predictions for healthcare IT from six industry experts - ITProPortal

In his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that when it comes to achieving progress, the difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones. For both the good and the bad, this sentiment rippled throughout Rights of Future Generations, the inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial. According to its curator, Adrian Lahoud, this edition is committed to radically rethinking fundamental questions about architecture, which here seems to partly involve an inquiry into what is lost when financial capital dictates design. Reflecting an ethos of adaptive reuse, the new institution, led by Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, has been set up in the Al-Qasimiyah School, a former state elementary school complex.

The site, one of the primary venues of this edition, is host to Becoming Xerophile (2019), a collaborative project between the artist duo Cooking Sections and the engineering firm AKT II, which transformed the compounds front yard into an apparatus that produces microclimates for desert fauna to flourish in. The projects title, a neologism created by combining the Greek words for dry and love, shifts away from contemporary landscape design, and its use of energy-intensive irrigation, in favour of native plant species and ancient watering methods. Xenophile adopts the sci-fi aesthetic of dusty lunar outposts by recuperating rubble from the schools renovation into inhabitable earthwork mounds and amphitheatre-like spaces that trap moisture from the air.

The exhibitions other main venue, Al Jubail Souq Fruit & Vegetable Market, hosts Priests and Programmers (2019), a series of installations ranging from films, archival documents, music, models and interactive displays that trace the history of Balis Subak rice farming heritage. This infrastructural network, active since the 9th century, spans countless rice terraces managed by priests from water temples. While the research-heavy presentations touch on many aspects of this culture, the cumulative effect is to suggest that these religious rites serve not only as metaphysical practices, but also management systems that enable sustainable farming.

Ritual technologies were also on display in the awakening ceremony that inaugurated Ngurrara Canvas II (1997), a vibrant 8 10-metre painting made by activist-artists whose ancestors traditionally occupied the region known today as Great Sandy Desert in Australia. (Ngurrara means country in the indigenous Walmadjari language.) Resembling a kind of hypnotic aerial photograph, the canvas is inundated with undulating swirls of colour forming contour-like lines that chart sacred waterholes and soaks across the desert. This iconography, an alternative system to the European cartography that aided colonization, was entered in support of an official native land title claim. Considered a tool by its makers, the canvas could be seen as a retort to considerations of art for arts sake, just as Priests and Programmers undermines the idea of ritual for rituals sake. With these considerations in mind, the curators appear to be making a necessary, if somewhat sweeping, claim for artistic and spiritual practices to be understood as a form of applied science.

The Triennials events programme also reflects this synergistic view of advocacy as both descriptive and proscriptive. A series of policy workshops assembled global leaders, including the former President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, to draft a Sharjah Charter on the Rights of Future Generations. While their positions primarily voiced concerns about climate change and the inequities of globalisation, the addition of a controversial AIDS denialist, Thabo Mbeki, cast a disconcerting pall over the whole endeavour.

As the President of South Africa, Mbekis government recommended the use of strong garlic and beetroot as a treatment for AIDS preferable to anti-retroviral drugs. Several studies, including one from the Harvard School of Public Health, claim that this policy resulted in over 330,000 premature deaths and the infection of 35,000 infants, after their mothers were unable to obtain access to preventative medicine. Mbeki secretly authored and circulated a paper stating that the scientific link between HIV and AIDS was predicated on centuries-old white racist beliefs and concepts about Africans. Although Mbeki has tried to spin his words and deeds, historical scapegoats shouldnt give him license to escape accountability.

Lawrence Abu Hamdans lecture-performance Once Removed (2019), meanwhile, offered a stark contrast, imagining how the dead might give testimony. Hamdan told the story of Bassel Abi Chahine, a 31-year-old historian of the Lebanese Civil War who believes he is a reincarnated child solider from that conflict. Specious as this may sound, current advancements in epigenetic research have shown that life trauma can actually affect the gene expression of ones offspring. Likewise, culture is itself a kind of gene, passed on to future generations. While the Triennial claims to be forward-looking, it is most impactful when it reflects on the past.

The inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial continues at various locations around Sharjah, UAE, through 8 February 2020.

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The First Sharjah Architecture Triennial: Can Art Be an Applied Science? - frieze.com