Packing the Substitute Teacher Pool With Outside Experts, Charging Cars By the Mile (Not By the Gallon) and More

 
What Can Substitute Teachers Do for City Schools? CityLab

The average teacher misses 9.4 days each school year. Total it up, and by high school graduation, a student will have spent six months of class-time with a substitute teacher. Rather than having a sub plod through an unfamiliar lesson plan or just distribute worksheets, a new model at two Boston schools places local experts in urban farming, animation, robotics, puppetry — you name it — at the blackboard to teach about their field.
Taxing Drivers by the Mile, Instead of at the Pump, The Denver Post

Hybrid and electric vehicles may be a boon to the atmosphere, but they’ve caused some headaches for government administrators, namely, how to pay for bridge and road repairs. Prius drivers travel farther on a tank — functionally discounting their share of the gas tax — so the Colorado Department of Transportation is testing the feasibility of a fairer standard: charging for each mile driven instead.
Can Hypothermia Save Gunshot Victims? The New Yorker

Most people who suffer a traumatic gunshot wound die within an hour. Having lost so much blood, their heart can no longer circulate what’s left. A new procedure at University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, near Baltimore, buys more time by putting the body on ice. When a victim is wheeled in, doctors fill the body with freezing saline, pausing heartbeats and giving them just enough time to sew up the wounds.

The New Devices That Make It Easier to Follow the Doctor’s Orders

Ever forgotten to take a prescription medication before leaving for work in the morning? Maybe even accidentally skipped a whole day of antibiotics once you started feeling better? Of course you have. No harm done, right? Don’t be so sure.
Aside from the obvious dangers of someone forgetting to take medicine they need, the Atlantic estimates that the U.S. hemorrhages $100 to $300 billion dollars from medication non-adherence, or “taking too many pills, not taking enough pills, taking the wrong pills at the wrong times.” Between wasted pills, unnecessary doctor’s visits and hospitalizations, even premature deaths, this mistake is all too common.
For decades, the answer has been those plastic pill organizers with a little box for each day of the week. No more. Companies like Vitality and PillPack are invoking a 21st century consciousness to bypass the dangers — both medical and financial — posed by medication non-adherence. And with 20 percent of American adults taking five or more prescriptions, the market is poised for an easy solution.
From Vitality comes GlowCap, a device that fits over most prescription bottles and “that lights up when it’s time to take a pill, then chirps, and finally sends a text reminder,” reports the Atlantic. Soon, Vitality also plans to release the GlowPack, which will monitor adherence for sirups, inhalers, ointments and blisters packs as well.
And PillPack wants to get rid of the current script bottle entirely. Instead of providing each medication separately, PillPack is a full-service pharmacy that arranges and mails all of your medications in single-use packets labeled for the specific time they should be taken, eliminating virtually any risk of taking too much or too little of your meds. PillPack’s CEO, T.J. Parker, isn’t shy about his product’s appeal: “We have the opportunity to make everyday tasks delightful. Even something as unsexy as taking pills,” he says.
MORE: These Pharmacists Are Making Affordable Medication for All a Reality

This Man Wants to Give a Voice to People With Brain Injuries

Dan Bacher’s job is all about the not-so-simple connection between thinking and doing.
Bacher is a 29-year-old engineer who has been working with BrainGate, a collaboration between Brown University and other academic institutions, to pioneer an experimental brain implant that helps people with severe, paralyzing brain injuries use computers to regain movement and task completion. Bacher has been working with BrainGate patient Cathy Hutchinson, who suffered a brain stem stroke in 1996 that left her mostly motionless but with an alert mind. An optimistic sticker on her wheelchair reads “My legs don’t work, but my brain does.” Bacher and BrainGate have implanted a computer chip in her brain that helps her move a robotic arm by thinking about doing so and perform tasks such as picking up a cup of coffee and drinking it through a straw. Though this technology proves immensely helpful, Hutchinson still struggles with something more basic — communication.
Her $10,000 communications device malfunctions often and is time consuming to use. Bacher said watching and seeing this struggle is what inspired him to create a nonprofit called SpeakYourMind Foundation Inc. Bacher is using SpeakYourMind to find low-cost alternatives to expensive communications technology. He just installed an $800 Windows tablet on her wheel chair with new communications software that uses her slight head movements along with algorithms to spell out words on the screen or send emails. Though the software is still new, it’s a step up from Hutchinson’s current form of communication. Before Bacher left Hutchinson’s home after installing the new tablet, it took her 45 minutes to write this short message to The Providence Journal: “I’m excited about the future of sym,” she wrote, using sym as the acronym for SpeakYourMind. “I have faith in sym and I’m very optimistic about the help it will bring to so many.”
MORE: How Crowdsourcing Medical Bills Can Usher in a New Era of Health Care Transparency

Someone’s Offering $10 Million to Make This Star Trek Tech a Reality

Why would anyone want to re-create technology from ’70s sci-fi TV?  Well, here are a few million reasons: Qualcomm is offering a $10 million prize for the techies who can invent a modern version of a medical tool from the original Star Trek. 33 teams are competing to remake The Tricorder, Dr. McCoy’s handheld diagnostic device that could scan a patient, record data and analyze disease. Scientists from University of California San Diego scientists are among those rising to the challenge. Their OASIS project is building a device that can read blood and saliva and diagnose diseases from influenza and whooping cough to diabetes, HIV, and hepatitis. The prototype also takes vital signs, and its creators hope it will eventually be capable of connecting the information it collects with the surrounding environment. At least one thing hasn’t changed since the ’70s: the future is as exciting as ever.

How Crowdsourcing Medical Bills Can Usher in a New Era of Health Care Transparency

Clarification appended February 10, 2014. 
Despite all the changes that the Affordable Care Act has brought to the U.S. health care industry, many patients still don’t know the up-front costs of common procedures and checkups. Enter Doctible (working title), a website that will allow patients to compare out-of-pocket costs on common procedures in their area, as well as view doctor ratings based on patient reviews. The site was conceived after Erich Graham, 27, injured himself playing hockey a few years ago. He realized that he was going to need an MRI, and because he had a high-deductible plan, he knew it was probably going to be expensive. Graham tried shopping around for the best price in his area, and found it almost impossible to learn the real costs before the imaging was performed. “It’s like looking at apartments, checking out the amenities, meeting the landlord, signing the lease, and then finding out what the rent is,” he told Fast Company.
MORE: Why House Calls Are Health Care’s Future, Not Just Its Past
Graham knew there had to be a better way, so he teamed up with a fellow graduate from Cornell Tech, Greg Tobkin, 28, and together they came up with an idea to allow consumers to crowdsource their doctor bills, in order to inform other users of their medical experiences — and most importantly, the costs of procedures and checkups. The pair is currently seeking funding and advisers to help them navigate the tricky world of health care pricing. But while there are some barriers to overcome before launch, Graham and Tobkin know that, given the success of sites like ZocDoc and Yelp, which already offer patient reviews, the ability to compare health care costs is a service that could be incredibly helpful. “This will definitely exist in five years, whether it’s us or someone else who does it,” Tobkin says. “There’s too big a need.”
Clarification: Doctible was the working title of Graham and Tobkin’s Cornell Tech project. Their idea is not related to the startup Doctible, a website that allows consumers to negotiate prices on medical bills. Graham and Tobkin are seeking a new name for their venture, and are in talks with startup accelerators to get their idea off the ground.

What Started as Homework Turned Into a Life-Saving Medical Device

A young, eager mind is a powerful thing. A room full of them together, even more so. In Rice University professor Maria Oden’s undergraduate course, they’re striving to solve global health problems. Students in the Rice 360 program, founded by Oden and fellow bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum, first learn about problems in rural hospitals  and then design simple solutions that can help. One of the class’s biggest successes is a student design for an affordable “bubble CPAP” (continuous positive airway pressure), a device that pushes air into the lungs of premature infants to help them breathe. The prototype was made from a plastic shoe box and two aquarium pumps. “One of the wonderful things about working with 18-year-olds is that they’re so creative,” Oden told Joe Palca of NPR. “They don’t have fixed ideas about what might not work.” After fine-tuning, the invention was tested at small hospitals in Malawi and is now ready to deploy throughout that country. Students even got to meet a baby  whose life was saved by their device. “It sent chills all the way down my entire spine, because I realized that while we’re teaching students, and we want them to leave here believing they can make a difference, this was the picture of a true difference being made,” Richards-Kortum told NPR.

The Next Revolutions in Health and Fitness Are Tiny, Nearly Invisible and Absolutely Amazing

These revolutions are going to be tiny. Some of them are almost invisible. But technology is bringing major changes to health and fitness, from daily workout trackers to crucial preventive techniques. Workout trackers are about to get even more amazing, with devices that track not just your speed and incline data, but extreme data like G-Force. And webcam personal trainers will take some of the cost barriers and time commitment issues out of daily workout routines. Meanwhile, fitness equipment isn’t the only thing that’s getting easier and easier to bring into your own home; medical devices are coming there too. Checking, recording, and analyzing your vital signs will be possible with a wearable sticker so thin it’s basically a “tattoo,” and online methods of sharing information with your doctor will transform doctor’s visits and annual physicals forever. But can you imagine a small implant that can predict a heart attack within three or four hours before it might happen?

Why House Calls Are Health Care’s Future, Not Just Its Past

The 308,000 individuals worldwide who received remote monitoring in 2012 to care for issues like heart disease, diabetes, and mental illness is already pretty impressive. The projections for the next five years are even more astounding. The telehealth revolution has already started, and while home monitoring is certainly on the rise, the resources to improve diagnosis, treatment, and maintaining quality of life are improving significantly. Being able to “health from home” points to global trends in safer sharing of information, better rates of disease prevention, and lower costs of time and money for families facing diseases and conditions. It makes one wonder: what’s next for telemedicine and mobile health technology?

A Nickel-Sized Device Could Soon Save Your Life

A new pacemaker from Medtronic is all about shrinking: the device reduces the cost and risk of treating heart disease while measuring barely larger than a nickel. Doctors can implant it in the heart using a catheter, rather than invasive surgery, meaning patients will recover far more quickly and experience fewer post-operation complications. A ten-year battery life means less long-term maintenance, though it also means that children won’t be able to use the pacemaker. Clinical trials will test the world’s smallest pacemaker on up to 780 patients around the world.

5 Secrets to Boosting Health Innovation

Even innovators in a booming field need a little help sometimes. That’s why health accelerator programs work to support medical technology startups by providing everything from financial capital to strategic guidance. In a review of industry practices, the California Healthcare Foundation has reported five ways to “maximize the value of healthcare accelerators” including providing access to healthcare professionals and making specialized connections in the marketplace.