Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere propose a "connection between the epigenome, selective mutability, evolution, and human disease" based on the findings of their study on associations of structural mutability with germline DNA methylation and with non-allelic homologous recombination mediated by low-copy repeats. "Combined evidence from four human sperm methylome maps, human genome evolution, structural polymorphisms in the human population, and previous genomic and disease studies consistently points to a strong association of germline hypomethylation and genomic instability," the Baylor-led team writes.
Quest Road Show Will Use Federal Incentives as Carrot to Hawk Care360
Quest has devised a clever marketing carrot to help it hawk its Care360 EHR platform.
Later this month the reference lab will take the tool on a 12-week, 10-city US tour designed to show physicians how they can take advantage of federal incentives to buy it.
In a statement last week, Quest said the tour is meant to "help hospitals and physician practices across the nation experience first-hand the operational and financial benefits of electronic health records and Care360 EHR."
But of course the major reason is to "stimulate EHR adoption," as the reference lab noted. You have to give the lab full points for this strategy, which, by focusing on the generous incentive, could indeed accumulate a barrelful of new customers.
As part of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, "eligible" physicians and other practice or hospital staff can receive up to $44,000 over five years to help them install Care360. Quest has created a web page to explain the incentives.
The Care360 traveling circus will include interactive demonstrations of the software's functionality and its Clinical Decision Support, ePrescribing, secure-messaging, and iPad and iPhone applications.
The road show will visit Houston; Dallas; Phoenix; Tampa, Fla., Miami; Raleigh, NC; Fairfax, Va.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; and New York.
Today more than 165,000 physicians at more than 75,000 locations in the US use Care360, which is overseen by Quest's MedPlus subsidiary.
The tour comes five months after Quest got a stiff shot in the arm when the American Medical Association said it will begin offering the platform some time this year to its small and mid-sized healthcare-practice members.
At that time, the organization had been beta-testing the software in Michigan in collaboration with the Michigan State Medical Society.
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