Day: December 9, 2011

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Patient Bar Codes in the UK: Good or Bad? Useful or Scary?

Patient Bar Codes in the UK: Good or Bad? Useful or Scary? It may seem like a scene straight out of sci-fi movie, but yes, all patients in the United Kingdom will be processed with barcodes by 2013.

The National Health Service announced this week that patients in all four publicly funded health care systems across the U.K. will be given barcoded wristbands. Like product barcodes, these will be read by handheld scanners.

The nationwide barcoding system is meant to cut down the risk of patients being mistaken for someone else or of being given the wrong medication—mix-ups that are common in clinics and hospitals throughout the world.

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Wifi Allergy: Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is a Thing

Wifi Allergy: Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is a Thing. Wi-Fi is a device used to connect electronic devices wirelessly. A Wi-Fi enabled device—a personal computer, video game console, smart phone or digital audio player—can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point.

An access point, or hotspot, has a range of about 20 meters (65 feet) indoors and a greater range outdoors. Multiple overlapping access points are used to cover areas as large as many square kilometers.

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Pregnant, Fat, and Overweight: Health Risk to Your Kid?

Pregnant, Fat, and Overweight: Health Risk to Your Kid? Are you pregnant? Are you overweight? Today, most people know that being overweight before and during pregnancy can harm a woman’s health seriously.

But new research shows that being overweight when you’re pregnant can also have health consequences for your child, and these can last into his or her adulthood.

“While it’s pretty well-known that a healthy weight is crucial to a healthy and long life, new research is showing that if a woman is overweight while pregnant, her baby is more likely to be overweight,” said Alan R. Fleischman, M.D., medical director of March of Dimes.

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Undercooked Liver Pate Food Poisoning: Campylobacter Infections Rise

Campylobacter Infection and Undercooked Liver Pate. Serving undercooked chicken or duck liver pâté or parfait has been a trend among both haute cuisine chefs and amateur foodies for some time now. But public health officials in the United Kingdom say this may cause hundreds of people to fall ill with food poisoning.

Eating undercooked poultry liver pâté or parfait at weddings and other functions in hotels, clubs, restaurants and other banquet venues has been identified as the cause of nearly all food poisoning cases across the UK this year.

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