by Jill Hoffman | Aug 21, 2013 | Medical Devices
In 1650, a German Jesuit named Athanasius Kircher invented the ear trumpet, a funnel-shaped device to collect sound waves and direct them into the ears of nearly deaf patients. Medical technology has come a long way since then, and today medtech devices include robots...
by Jill Hoffman | Aug 7, 2013 | Medical Devices
When Medtronic manufactured the first pacemakers more than 50 years ago, physicians did not know what they were. The idea of implanting a man-made device in a patient’s chest sounded crazy. It was up to sales reps to teach doctors how pacemakers worked and how they...
by Jill Hoffman | Jul 18, 2013 | Medical Devices
In 1958, Minneapolis engineer Earl Bakken produced the first wearable external pacemaker. Since that time, biomedical engineering has contributed to human welfare by alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life. Advanced medical devices have improved the...
by Jill Hoffman | Jul 2, 2013 | Medical Devices
In 2011, an IBM supercomputer named Watson defeated two reigning champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy, winning the first prize of $1 million. Watson has a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge—more than 15 times Wikipedia—and can process the equivalent of a...
by Jill Hoffman | Jun 11, 2013 | Editorial
Health information technology (health IT), or the exchange of health information in an electronic environment, allows the safe and secure sharing of health information as it passes between consumers, providers, insurers and government entities. Health IT has been on...
