News From Around the Web
> Doctors can now reduce process of testing for dementia from three years to 10 minutes thanks to Cantab, a new iPad app from Cambridge Cognition, which is designed to help early diagnoses of dementia. The technology, based on testing developed at the University of Cambridge, is designed to be easy for patients to use. Cantab is available in 20 languages, with options to encrypt test results for printing or including in a patient's file. Article
> San Antonio-based mHealth vendor AirStrip announced that it is the first mHealth vendor to participate in Microsoft's AppsForSurface program. As part of the program, the company will launch and make available AirStrip ONE Cardiology on the Microsoft Surface tablet and other Windows laptops, desktops and mobile devices. "Thanks to this program, AirStrip will give healthcare providers a seamless user experience regardless of whether they are using AirStrip solutions on their Windows-enabled mobile devices, a Surface tablet, a laptop, or a desktop," said AirStrip CEO Alan Portela in the announcement. Article
> Palo Alto-based startup Azumio has introduced Argus, a mobile app that provides a unified picture of a person's health and fitness. Argus turns a smartphone into a "sophisticated health and fitness device as it monitors and manages your activities, food, sleep patterns, exercise, hydration, caffeine-consumption, weight and vitals, helping you make sense of numerous biofeedback data points to reach your health goals and improve overall well-being," according to the announcement. The app unifies all statistics and user input by automatically and seamlessly bringing together information from sensors on a smartphone, data from other Azumio apps, and details from a variety of other health and fitness apps and third-party wearable devices. Article
EMR News
> A lead software designer for VistA recently called out Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel for not taking a patient-centric approach to the creation of an integrated electronic health record between DoD and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In an open letter posted to his personal website, health IT consultant Tom Munnecke said that despite good intentions, Hagel and the DoD are "paving a road to a hellish destination" by looking to outside vendors for its EHR needs. Article
Healthcare IT News
> Providers in the U.K. plan to test eICU technology used in the U.S. to determine whether remote monitoring of critically ill patients is effective. Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, which has 100 intensive care beds across different sites, will launch the evaluation of Philips telemedicine technology, comparing it with its existing care and with eICU care in the U.S., according to the BMJ Group. Richard Beale, the trust's clinical director of perioperative, critical care and pain services, told a conference last week that if successful, the technology could be rolled out more widely. Article
And Finally… Hygiene made easy. Article