It may seem an unlikely marriage. Compassionate, patient-oriented nurses are joining forces with machine-focused, data-driven engineers. Nevertheless, this odd couple is creating many innovative improvements to healthcare services.

The field of bio-medical engineering is recognizing that in their roles on the front lines of patient interactions, nurses have a troops-on-the-ground vision of potential problems and realistic solutions. The engineers have the nuts-and-bolts knowledge to build the needed equipment and devices. The collaborations go beyond simply recommendations from either side. The teams interact and work together in partnerships.

It seems that we are experiencing “the storm of the century” almost every year.  Although the media hype of these natural disasters is far greater than the actual event warrants, it does highlight the importance of the necessity for management of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) during any type of disaster.  The tech-savvy doctor will, of necessity, need to keep abreast of the dramatic changes in Health Information Exchanges (HIE) to offer the best possible care for their patients in case of an emergency.

The day of the six million dollar man is arriving sooner than you think.  Back in the late ‘70s, the popular TV series, “The Six Million Dollar Man” was a science fiction series about an astronaut involved in a crash that nearly killed him.   Declaring that "we have the technology to rebuild this man", the government spent six million dollars rebuilding Steve Austin with bionics to be better than new.  While an interesting and culturally successful premise, the series was decades ahead of its time scientifically, but not for long.   Huge strides in “bio-robotics” are, and will increasingly, affect the lives of millions of Americans.

Mention the word ‘stem cell’ to anyone in the medical, science, religious or political arena and you may find the debate on this topic could last for hours.  There are crucial issues and differences between embryonic and non-embryonic stem cells that are taking the biotechnology world by storm.  The advances in these technologies are leading us into a century of biology along with genetic engineering and cloning.

Technology has stormed into the physician’s office with new tools to enhance patient care and a potentially better future through mining massive amounts of data.  The World Health Organization defines EHealth as the delivery of health information, education and business through the Internet and telecommunications.

Living in rural areas makes it difficult to access different medical services on a consistent basis, especially when emergency situations arise or critical care is needed.  Receiving clinical healthcare at a distance is made possible with the use of information technologies and telecommunication known as Telemedicine.  It allows communication between the medical staff and patient that is both convenient and efficient by transmitting medical information, data and imaging from one site to another.  Those involved with in-home care benefit from this new technology using telemedical devices and support from distributed client/server applications.

Kindles, Nooks, tablets and even Smartphones are our new libraries. From 6- to 66-year-olds, readers are turning to eBooks instead of traditional bound paper. You probably have read some of the eBooks offered by Healthcare Networks of America on a variety of personal and professional topics.

Timely, leading-edge, easy-to-access, and inexpensive electronic books can also function as medical marketing tools to help inform current patients, attract new patients, as well as improve practice revenue. There’s even an official “Read An eBook Week”, so this is a great time to consider becoming a digital author.

When is the last time you saw an old television show or movie? Likely in some scene there was an office. Now, I’m not talking about from the 1950’s, but rather from maybe the 1980’s. Oh, that is not that long ago or is it? Look at the office, what do you see? Likely you see a typewriter, but usually not a computer. Ever heard of a typing pool? A transcriptionist? Do you know short hand? If you answered yes, you are likely at least in your 40’s. Now turn on the TV.

In these busy times, it’s no surprise that the patient-doctor relationship has eroded. Increased productivity requirements have shortened the amount of time you have to spend with each patient so many physicians are opting to communicate with patients via email.