| Coalition offers e-prescribing service
Software vendor Allscripts Healthcare Solutions assembled a coalition of healthcare plans, technology companies and provider organizations to back an offer to provide a free, Web-based electronic-prescribing service to all U.S. physicians in an effort to boost what so far has been lackluster use of the technology.
Members of the coalition, called the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative, announced the strategy last week during a media event at the National Press Club in Washington, and introduced the eRx Now service. Others who have signed on as corporate sponsors are computer makers Dell and Fujitsu Computer Products of America; software developer Microsoft Corp.; network equipment maker Cisco Systems; data-miner Wolters Kluwer Health; telecommunications provider Sprint Nextel Corp.; and SureScripts, the for-profit consortium formed by two leading pharmacy trade groups that provides an e-prescribing technology platform connecting doctors offices with retail pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers.
Electronics gears for health care innovation
Biomedical research is making huge strides in unlocking the secrets of human physiology and identifying potential new therapeutic and diagnostic instruments. At the same time, advances in electronics are enabling those new devices to be realized. As a result, medical applications make up one of the fastest-growing segments for ICs. The growing convergence of electronics and medicine can also be seen in trends that are common to both disciplines. While it may seem that the two fields have little in common, they actually share several technological frontiers: Both are driven by the need for small physical size, low power and advanced connectivity. Some medical devices require the maximum possible processing power. Radiological and magnetic imaging systems consume all the gigaflops they can get, and size is not the main concern.
Drugs from Canada seized in So. Fla
Federal officials confiscated at least 37 packages of medicine from Canada shipped to South Florida consumers in late January, despite an October promise to stop targeting drugs imported for personal use.
A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Friday said in a brief statement that Canadian pharmacy shipments were detained at Miami International Airport for strictly routine reasons.
But South Florida seniors, Canadian pharmacy officials and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said the number of seizures was far more than normal and questioned if the Bush administration is reviving its controversial drive against Canadian drugs, which cost less but are banned in the United States.
"Not this again," said Tamarac retiree Norman Steinman, whose box of Diovan blood pressure pills was seized Jan.
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