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[healthcareglobal]

Big Pharma: Taking a Drug from Theory to Research and Development

Did you know that it can take up to 15 years to develop one new medicine from the earliest stages of discovery to the time it is available for treating patients? And out of the multiple new medicines being created only 10 percent reach the clinical trials phase, with only one of five ever being approved for human use?

It’s a lengthy and challenging process, but a deeper understanding of the R&D (research and development) process can explain why so many compounds don’t make it.

Success requires immense resources, sophisticated technology and complex project management. It also takes persistence and, sometimes, even luck. Ultimately, though, the process of drug discovery brings more than just a new pill to the pharmacy shelves – it brings hope and relief to millions of patients around the world.

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[healthcareglobal]

Why Pharma Companies Should Invest in Brazil's Medical Market (and How)

Brazil, a signature country of South America, just surpassed 200 million residents. It is the main economy in Latin America and one of the most important at world level, regionally considered industrialized in spite of the variety of income, from very low in rural and peripheral areas to very high in the most populous cities.

Brazil’s health system is universal and available to all citizens for free and financed by the state, with an extensive use of other non-vital health products related, like cosmetics and alternative medicine and aesthetic surgery.

Private medicine is well developed for the people with higher income mostly wanting a better and faster service. Research also demands an important investment by the government and universities, particularly related to tropical diseases. For citizens, health care comes in third place as priority after home ownership and quality education.

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[healthcareglobal]

TOP 10: World's Biggest Health Care Trade Shows to Attend in 2015

The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries. Every year, hundreds of trade shows and conventions are held across the globe, gathering thousands of health care companies and hundreds of thousands of visitors.

We have created a list for the biggest and most important trade-shows in the world (by number of exhibitors). The reasons for these trade shows’ success are pretty obvious: you get the chance to connect with leading professionals in your sector, manufacturers showcase some of their latest and most innovative products, and you usually get to see devices in action and start or extend business relationships.

Here are our top picks for health care trade shows to attend this year.

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[healthcareglobal]

Why We Should Be Concerned With the Recent ADHD Prescription Boom

The use of medication for the treatment of attention deficit disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), is growing. The recent recognition of ADHD as a condition that can also afflict adults has provided a boom to the industry, and health care reform has enabled more children to access behavioral health services, resulting in more patients being able to have their ADHD identified and treated.

That’s the conclusion of a new report published by IBISWorld, a market research firm, which showed that ADHD medication sales have grown 8 percent each year since 2010 and will grow another 13 percent this year to $12.9 billion.

The report also projects that this growth will continue over the next five years at an annualized rate of 6 percent, and take in $17.5 billion in the year 2020, making it one of the top psychopharmaceutical categories on the market.

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[healthcareglobal]

The Hospital of Tomorrow: Can Mobile Tech Cure All Ills?

For many governments, how a country looks after its own health is often the cornerstone of any successful political campaign. Even if budgets rise for health care systems, ageing populations mean that health services are being stretched more than ever. So, where do health care organisations even begin to try and become more streamlined and deliver a service that’s equivalent to other industries?

To continue to meet performance goals, the global health care system has to evolve and mobile technology will be at the very heart of this change. Technology is key to any 21st century business and health care is no different. The hospital of tomorrow will be a shadow of what it is today and if the right decisions are made, technology innovation will start to deliver huge benefits; not just to hospitals but the patients it supports.

We believe the hospital of 2025 will:

1. Be 50 percent more efficient through the birth of the ‘mCloud’.

The mCloud will be a centralised, secure hub used for storing patient information that is accessible anywhere and anytime across the globe. A centralised hub will mean tomorrow’s medical records will be stored entirely on a private and secure cloud service that can be accessed wherever and whenever required. This will drive efficiencies through the roof.

mCloud allows hospitals to be part of a global, safe and secure network that gives doctors a broader set of records and a much more robust and holistic view of a patient. The money saved on issues like incorrect diagnosis could be reinvested into R&D departments allowing health care organisations to expand at a much quicker rate than they are doing today.

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[healthcareglobal]

World Cancer Day: The Biggest Cancer Myths Debunked

Every year, February 4th is dedicated to spreading awareness about one of the deadliest diseases in the world: cancer.

With more than 8 million cancer-related deaths taking place each year and approximately 14 million new cases, it’s a day that calls for global attention.

Thanks to a number of breakthroughs in research and treatment, cancer survival rates have doubled in the last 40 years, but the fight needs to continue. And while cancer is a well-known disease, there are still a number of myths that surround it.

[READ MORE] Why Scientists Learning How To Unboil An Egg Is Bad News For Cancer

Here, we debunk the biggest cancer myths to remove any stigma and bring the world closer to awareness.

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[healthcareglobal]

5 Steps to a Successful and Profitable Medical Practice

HealthIT.gov reports that plans are in place for making it easier for medical practices to comply with the HITECH Act. But the job's not finished.

What can your practice do now to make sure your business is fully able to implement the changes and processes when they are finalized?

One way to ensure your practice is primed to adopt mandatory processes down the road is to leverage what we already know about the coming changes.

So far, we know that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Office of Science & Technology (OST) wants to develop:

A standardized language around interoperability;

A standardized structure that conforms to the HL7 code;

A transport method via proven secure email protocol;

Encrypted security foundation via NIST;

API services.

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[healthcareglobal]

10 Things to Remember When Selling to Hospitals in 2015

With a new year comes new challenges, but also new opportunities. The health care market is changing as technology is playing a larger role, patients are taking their health into their own hands and the overall hospital customer base is changing.

Are you equipped with the proper products, training and pricing to sell this year?

Thomas Williams, managing director of Strategic Dynamics Inc., recently outlined the following ten things to remember when selling to hospitals to meet or exceed your revenue plan this year.

1. Supply chain costs account for 20-30 percent of a hospital’s budget so aggressive expense reductions will continue to prevail.

You should expect product standardization efforts to increase, Williams writes, continued focus on proper product utilization to eliminate unnecessary waste and usage, increasing difficulty getting new products into the system (committees) and continued pressure to reduce the prices paid for all items.

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[healthcareglobal]

This is How We Can End Mental Health Stigma Around the World

If you haven’t checked your Twitter feed lately, you’re missing out on something big. The number one trending hashtag is #BellLetsTalk, and unlike the usual quirky and fun hashtags that take over the social feed every day, this one serves a great cause.

Now in its fifth year, Bell Let’s Talk Day is a social media campaign that invites Canadians and individuals from all over the world to join the conversation on mental health.

Today, Bell will contribute five cents for every text message sent, mobile and long distance call made, Facebook share and tweet using the #BellLetsTalk hashtag.

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[healthcareglobal]

3 Incredible Wearables You Need to Try Right Now

Last year saw an explosion of wearable devices enter the market, and they continue to dominate the tech industry.

There’s a certain promise that comes with wearables, one of bringing users closer to their data and health rather than stored away in their pocket. A new device revolution is at hand: Just as mobile phones and tablets displaced the once-dominant PC, so wearable devices are poised to push smartphones aside.

You can now put a wearable on almost any part of your body, but still, not all wearables are created equal. Therefore, we’ve compiled the three most incredible wearables that came off the CES 2015 showroom floor.

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[healthcareglobal]

EXCLUSIVE: Australia's The Valley Private Hospital Reveals its Path to Success

On the southeastern end of Melbourne, Australia sits a 24-hour operating, private acute care hospital that has been servicing the region for 30 years. Established to serve the growing population of Melbourne, the hospital has become a groundbreaking leader in health care with the most innovative technology and top-of-the-line equipment.

The Valley Private Hospital is headed by CEO Neil Henderson, whose vision for the hospital is to continue to achieve both quality and profitability in the most optimum way.

“Although it is assumed that part of our mantra in the private system is to get a superior return on capital and investment and to optimize profitability for our return to our shareholders, it would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize that we put a lot of emphasis on quality,” said Henderson. “It’s a very simple fundamental philosophy that if you don’t have a quality service or quality product, you don’t have a product to sell.”

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[healthcareglobal]

5 Things You Need to Know About Electronic Health Records

Can electronic health record (EHR) integration improve residents of nursing homes’ health outcomes, reduce avoidable hospitalizations and medication errors? Can EHRs also reduce system inefficiencies resulting in cost savings?

According to the Leading Age CAST Report, these are the top five findings that can help answer those questions.

1. EHRs are a key driver to high quality health care.

With accurate data, reporting and clinical decision support tools, these capabilities are essential to improving care quality, driving efficiencies, reducing hospital readmissions and strengthening partnerships with other care providers.

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[healthcareglobal]

[VIDEO] The Coming Crisis of Antibiotic Resistance

Ramanan Laxminarayan is a health economist and professor. He recently hosted a TEDMED discussion where he applied lessons learned from the energy crisis to the rising challenge of antibiotic drug resistance.

According to Laxminarayan, “It has been a long time since people died of untreatable bacterial infections and the prospect of returning to that world is worrying.”

Antibiotics have been used to treat deadly diseases throughout time, but they have also been used on a smaller scale for treating the flu and cold-like symptoms. Laxminarayan additionally noted that antibiotics have been used on a large scale sub-therapeutically, to increase the sizes of chickens and hogs faster.

Due to this massive use of antibiotics around the world, it has imposed such large selection pressure on bacteria that resistance is now a problem because “we’ve now selected the resistant bacteria.”

Watch the Video Here

[healthcareglobal]

3 Health Care IT Vendors You Should Be Watching in 2015

While news of Ebola and security breaches overpowered the airwaves, 2014 was also a big year for health care IT developments. From greater interoperability to the adoption of business intelligence tools for predictive analytics, tech was at the forefront of the industry.

The following IT vendors are the ones that deserve all eyes during the new year.

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[healthcareglobal]

Where is the Future of the Health Care Supply Chain Headed?

Every year, for as long as I’ve been in healthcare, and that is now approaching 25 years, the industry takes stock of where it’s at and where we anticipate we’ll be in the New Year. The challenge in the healthcare supply chain, is that much of what was trending as far back as 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was passed into law, is still trending in 2015. The years preceding and those that followed have had a deliberate focus; process efficiency resulting in cost savings and improved quality of care.

In 2015, a primary focus should be on data. That’s the key to unlocking the supply chain challenges facing the industry.

The supply chain trends we’ve seen over the past couple years will continue including provider and supplier consolidation, patient care moving outside the acute care setting, reduced reimbursement levels, implementation of and integration with electronic health records (EHRs) and other healthcare business systems.

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[healthcareglobal]

This Ebola Outbreak Might Not Go Away For A Very Long Time

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues to spread like wildfire, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

As of this morning, there were 21,373 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. Since the outbreak began in late 2013, there have been a total of 8,468 deaths.

The Ebola virus disease was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, and by 2013 had caused about 20 recorded outbreaks across East and Central Africa. The outbreaks had been restricted to rural areas and confined to small clusters of villages. In each case, containment was achieved within a few months.

According to a panel of more than 60 World Health Organization experts, however, “the current epidemiologic outlook is bleak.”

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[healthcareglobal]

This Personal Story About Giving Birth Will Give You Insight into the Delivery Room

There is nothing more exciting (and terrifying) than bringing a baby into this world.

I've had two of my own, and it really is an experience unlike any other. It's exhilarating, exciting, and beautiful and can even be somewhat scary if a problem arises.

After three hours of pushing, my first daughter came out blue, limp and silent. What was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life turned out to be the most frightening.

Thanks to the amazing medical staff and advanced set-ups in the hospital rooms, my baby girl was crying and breathing within minutes. She was then monitored for 24 hours before being released, and thankfully, she is completely fine.

Each year, there are more than 15 million babies born prematurely, according to the World Health Organization.

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