As one of the world’s leading IT companies, IBM prides itself on providing top-notch technology products and offerings for business. But IBM also offers a growing number of solutions for society at large in such areas as environmental protection, social computing, and community projects.
“Science is the core of our business – there’s no mistaking that,” [...]

KOLKATA: Fortis Healthcare has decided to re-brand the 10 Wockhardt hospitals it acquired last year under the Fortis brandname from April 1. There-branding exercise will be followed by a heavy duty marketing and advertisement blitz in markets where the 10 hospitals are located. The change of brand name will also see Wockhardt hospitals adopting the [...]

 

 NEW DELHI: Fortis Healthcare announced on Thursday that it is buying private equity firm TPG Capital’s 23.9% stake in Singapore’s Parkway Holdings for $685.3 million (Rs 3,080 crore), supplanting Apollo Hospitals as Asia’s largest hospital chain.
Chairman Malvinder Singh, a former owner along with brother Shivinder of pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy Laboratories, said the deal will place [...]

For long now, obstetric practice has stopped conducting vaginal birth followed by a previous caesarean section and about nine in ten women in the United States end up in repeat caesareans.
A panel of experts from the National Institute of Health, recently recommended that obstetric practice revisit caesarean guidelines and actively perform  ‘vaginal delivery after caesarean [...]

A randomized controlled trial reported that thyroid hormone analogue, eprotirome, reduced LDL cholesterol by up to 32% beyond statins alone, an effect greater than doubling the dosage of statins. This study was conducted by researchers at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and is reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
This study included 189 [...]

Ever find it hard to overcome a squabble with a loved one? Here’s the clue according to an interesting research. Scientists claim that solving crosswords or anagrams stimulate the brain’s problem solving and decision making ability, which in turn helps overcome differences with dear ones quickly.
Lateral pre-frontal cortex is the puzzle solving area of the [...]

Whether one opts for a soothing massage or listens to soft music while practicing deep breathing in a dimly lit room, their effects on relieving stress are one and the same, a new research states.
Scientists at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle said the feeling of relaxation people experience during a massage could be [...]

To deliver maximum value for public money, St. James’s Hospital needs to keep tight control over its finances. Without integration between financial and materials management systems, the hospital faced delays and deficits.
By implementing a centralised ERP system, the hospital could facilitate integration and improve process efficiency. IBM Global Business Services helped St. James’s implement the [...]

PASADENA, CA – Nearly 1,000 affiliated physicians of Huntington Memorial Hospital, a 636-bed, not-for-profit hospital in Southern California, are moving to electronic prescribing, a step which hospital officials say will help bring them closer to an electronic healthcare record.
The hospital is offering its affiliated physicians a branded version of Chicago-based Allscripts’s stand-alone solution called HuntingtonRx.
“The [...]

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology,U.S.  has officially published a proposed rule establishing two certification programs–one temporary and the other permanent–to test and certify electronic health records.
The proposed rule describes how an organization would become an “ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body” under the temporary program. An organization would submit an application [...]

Article by Safa’ Faza’ for Biomed Middle East
Stem cells are cells found in most, if not all, multi-cellular organisms. They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Research in the stem cell field grew out of findings by Canadian scientists [...]

For the second time in two years, pharmaceutical bigwig Glaxo has strengthened its ties with Anglo-German company Cellzome, by signing a deal worth up to €475 million (US$644.3 million). The collaboration gives GSK an exclusive right to Cellzome’s epigenetics platform technology in the discovery of oral small-molecule drugs for treating immuno-inflammatory diseases.
The deal kicks off [...]

Most shoppers assume that vegetables labelled ‘fresh produce’ are no more than four days old. The truth however is that most vegetables are about two weeks old by the time they reach marketplace from a farm. A survey found that roughly 80% of shoppers had this misconception about the so-called ‘fresh produce’.
Scientists from the Institute [...]

According to a survey of 928 board-certified physicians by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, a group of plastic surgeons specializing in cosmetic surgery, cosmetic enhancement procedures in the United States plunged for the second year in a row in 2009. Blaming it on the sagging economy, the board revealed a 2% decline in [...]

A new study published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared survival rates of live kidney donors to non-donors and revealed that the former do not face any risk of premature death and have a life span as much as their non-organ donor counterparts.
Although kidney donors face a higher risk [...]