Interbots, Inc., a high-tech spin-off company associated with the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center has teamed up with the Autism Center of Pittsburgh to provide innovative robot-based therapy for children with autism. The program, “Character Therapy,” through the use of the Interbot robot “Popchilla” will test the ability of children with autism with limited or [...]

Researchers speaking at an annual conference suggested that research into making an artificial pancreas so patients with type 1 diabetes can better control glucose levels, is progressing rapidly and that the technology could be commercially available in just a few years. On Sunday, as part of the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association [...]

The Wall Street Journal: “Hospitals lack leverage when negotiating prices for high-cost implants like defibrillators and replacement hips because individual doctors, rather than hospitals, typically select the products they use in their patients. Since these doctors often aren’t hospital employees, they have little incentive to bargain-hunt. New health rules, however, call for more testing of [...]

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) has joined forces with the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) on a public service announcement (PSA) urging drivers to NEVER text while driving. Simply put, texting is a deadly distraction that can cause accidents, severe orthopaedic injuries or even death. Orthopaedic surgeons not only treat, but want to prevent [...]

The Wall Street Journal: A report out Thursday on the accessibility of doctors to pharmaceutical reps showed that fewer physicians are letting reps visit them. “The number of physicians who were ‘rep-accessible,’ defined as meeting with at least 70% of salespeople who come calling, dropped by 18% from last year, according to sales and marketing [...]

A House committee is looking at Johnson & Johnson after the company announced a recall of children’s medicines. “Lawmakers requested information on Thursday from regulators about Johnson & Johnson’s recall of Children’s Tylenol and other over-the-counter pediatric medicines, saying the company’s repeated recalls ‘point to a major problem’ with production,” Reuters/The New York Times reports. [...]

As H1N1 began to emerge in April 2009, HealthMap – an automated online disease tracking and mapping tool created by researchers in the Informatics Program at Children’s Hospital Boston – was already collecting information about the virus and plotting that information on a map of the globe, creating a freely available, real-time, digestible display of [...]

Sotera Wireless (fka Triage Wireless), a San Diego-based developer of “cuff-less” patient monitoring technology, has raised $10.75 million in Series C funding. West Family Holdings led the round, and was joined by return backers Sanderling Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Intel Capital. PRESS RELEASE Sotera Wireless, Inc. a developer of patient monitoring technology, announced completion of [...]

Carnegie Mellon University’s Anupam Datta is part of a multi-institutional research team that received a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to reduce security and privacy barriers to the meaningful use of health information technology. Datta, an assistant research professor with Carnegie Mellon CyLab, is one of 20 senior [...]

A study of 1,000 consecutive Computer-Assisted Robotic Total Knee Replacements performed over a five year period at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, NY demonstrates that the computer-assisted procedures result in far better leg alignment, much less likelihood of complicating infection, and a far lower early failure rate than surgeries performed using conventional techniques. The [...]