October 2010

An intensive population management program that matches heart disease patients to personal nurses and clinical pharmacy specialists is able to save lives, reduce hospital visits and drive down costs, according to a new study from Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

Researchers in the study examined healthcare expenditures in two populations of patients with heart disease: a group of 628 people enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Collaborative Cardiac Care Service (CCS), a population disease management program, and 628 matched patients receiving standard care. The goal of the study was to determine if an intensive disease management program could provide more value than usual care. Electronic medical records and computerized disease registries helped the clinicians in the study coordinate the care. For example, the electronic tools notify the clinical pharmacist if a patient forgets to pick up a prescription or a cholesterol test shows a change in medication is needed. Using this electronic data, clinical pharmacists can proactively outreach to the patient to support them in making necessary changes. The study found that patients cared for by the CCCS experienced superior health outcomes. As compared to patients receiving usual care, enrollees in the CCCS had better cholesterol control, were more likely to be screened and adhere to important medications like statins, and had far fewer hospitalizations. Overall, CCCS patients had an 89 percent reduction in overall mortality and 88 percent reduction in cardiac mortality compared with patients receiving standard care.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood says there is no way to drive safely when you're talking on a cell phone, even if you're using a hands-free device. He said that even talking through hands-free technology is a "cognitive distraction."

"Last year, 5,500 people were killed as a result of distracted driving and half a million were injured," he said. "Those are big numbers. A lot of lives and a lot of injuries can be saved if people take personal responsibility ... and put their cell phone or Blackberry in the glove compartment." While automakers seem to be headed in a different direction, installing new devices to help drivers stay more connected, Sec LaHood says he thinks they can be part of the solution. He has personally called Subaru's CEO to compliment the company on a recent ad that discourages cell phone use while driving. "We have support from the technology industry," Sec LaHood says, in addition to some insurance companies.

Spain allows its citizens to make private copies of copyrighted works -- but it compensates creators for the economic harm of this practice by laying down a levy on digital media and devices. If you purchase blank CDs or DVDs, or if you buy DVD burners or possibly even an MP3 player, you have to pay up.

But what if "you" aren't a person at all? Imagine a nonprofit that needs to back up its donor records, or a business that wants to burn its own promotional CDs, or a government agency that buys some computers with DVD burners built in. They won't be churning out Bob Dylan CD mixes, so how can it be fair to make them pay the levy? According to the European Court of Justice, it's not fair -- and it needs to stop.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month here in the United States, which is a good thing, because we come down with more PC botnet infections than any other country in the world. Microsoft reports 2.2 million US PCs hijacked for cybercrime or distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on websites in the first half of this year. And in late September, police in the greater New York area busted over 60 members of a botnet ring whose plan was to deploy the Zeus Trojan to clean out banks. Botnets "are the launch pad for much of today's criminal activity on the Internet," Microsoft security expert Adrienne Hall warned last week. "In many ways, they are the perfect base of operations for computer criminals."