Archive for July, 2009

What is a Henry?

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

While we were in Milwaukee we saw a sales presentation for a new MRI machine. Its a pretty funny thing, the marketing of MRI machines – the features are really esoteric, and you need a crane and a reinforced concrete floor to get it into it’s new home.

One of the features touted in a powerpoint we saw is that the new model MRI machine has 5,700 Henrys. At which point Adam the aerospace engineer said “holy crap”. Noah and I said “what’s a Henry?”

So we look it up and a Henry is this: Haha kidding. I don’t understand this equation. But I did some research!

In any situation involving electricity, there is a magnetic field generated by the electricity passing through a circuit, and the field causes a certain amount of interference with the passage of electricity, and the amount of magnetic interference is called inductance.

One unit of inductance is a Henry, and if you are trying to transmit electricity efficiently, you don’t want a lot of Henrys. However! If you are trying to make the mightiest magnets ever for your magnetic imaging device, you want all the Henrys you can get.

So basically, a Henry is more or less the “horsepower” of the MRI industry.

Posted by benjamin in GE Healthcare Wisconsin
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Value of Primary Care

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Still not sure where I fall on the role of primary care physicians, but this research on the value is quite interesting:

Looking at the medical records of more than 155,000 patients at nine physician practices and four community health centers in the hospital’s primary care network, they found that patients who not only named their own doctors but whose doctors also identified them as “my patient” were more likely to get screenings for cancer, diabetes, and coronary artery disease compared to patients not linked to a personal physician. These patients saw different doctors in a practice or health center.

Although the patient-physician connection was more common among people who are white, speak English, and have health insurance, the bond with a personal physician was a bigger factor than race or ethnicity in whether a patient got guideline-recommended preventive care. Being insured was also not as important as being connected, according to the study, which was completed before Massachusetts passed its healthcare law mandating near-universal coverage.

Via Musings of a Distractible Mind.

Posted by Noah in The Internet
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Good video on how MRI works

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Found this video, which is a good explanation of how MRI works, notable also because its explained by
“Wizard of Schenectady” Howard Hart, who used to work for General Electric on MRI design, and the video is produced by the awesome Edison Museum in Schenectady

Posted by benjamin in GE Healthcare Wisconsin, The Internet
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Why is an MRI so loud?

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Anyone who’s had an MRI knows one thing: they are SO LOUD. Why is that ? Well we found out last week: basically an MRI is giant speaker!

The way an MRI works is by creating a super-powered electromagnet that resonates at specific frequencies.

The way a loudspeaker works is by applying an electric field to a coil in conjunction with a magnet that moves a cone (which produces the sound).

So in the case of an MRI, a byproduct of the really gigantic magnet used to analyze your internal organs is that at some frequencies the magnet is acting like the magnet in a loudspeaker, and the enclosure for the machine itself is acting like the speaker cone.

This isn’t intentional, just a byproduct of the basic technology, and GE actually puts in a bunch of sound insulation and uses other tricks (and recommends ear protection) to make it less loud.

To prove the point that its basically a big speaker, here is an audio-only youtube clip that is a song played by using an MRI machine:

Posted by benjamin in GE Healthcare Wisconsin
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Healthcare as a Reflection of Culture

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

In his review of the upcoming book The Healing of America, Jacob Weisberg makes some interesting points about healthcare policy being reflective of the country’s culture. The point I found most interesting was how off the current system is on a sociological level, as he explains in this paragraph:

It is on the sociological level, though, that we’re missing the boat most completely by sticking doggedly with a workplace-based system that no longer makes sense. America has always been a mobile society with a labor market that grows more fluid over time. Once, the norm was to work for a single employer for one’s entire career. Today, people change jobs an average of 11 times before they reach 40. Fear of losing health coverage keeps people in jobs they would otherwise leave, creating a drag on economic efficiency.

I hadn’t thought about how the trend of people being more transient in their jobs effects our healthcare policy, but it makes sense it should.

Posted by Noah in The Internet
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How Are You Feeling Today?

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

While we were out at Waukasha we spoke to David Lee again. One of the things he said that was very interesting is that one of the best predictors of a person’s health is the question “how are you feeling today?”

With that in mind I was super fascinated to learn about Track Your Happiness (via Enjoymentland). The site is part of some doctoral research coming out of Daniel Gilbert’s lab (Gilbert wrote Stumbling On Happiness). As the site explains:

Track Your Happiness.org is a new scientific research project that aims to use modern technology to help answer this age-old question. Using this site in conjunction with your iPhone, you can systematically track your happiness and find out what factors – for you personally – are associated with greater happiness. Your responses, along with those from other users of trackyourhappiness.org, will also help us learn more about the causes and correlates of happiness.

This is super interesting to me and starts towards making health a better game, which we’ve been talking lots about.

Posted by Noah in GE Healthcare Wisconsin, The Internet
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The Marketing (Problem) of Health

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

As part of this project and my new interest in healthcare, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I believe health is essentially a marketing problem: An attempt to change consumer behavior through communication. With that in mind I was intrigued by this New Scientist editorial that suggests climate change has a positioning problem. Specifically the editorial suggests that science’s hard line that it’s not about belief, but rather fact, misses the point of how culture actually works:

People’s attitudes towards climate change, even Pope’s, are belief systems constructed through social interactions within peer groups. People then select the storylines that accord best with their personal world view. In Pope’s case and in my own this is a world view that respects scientists and empirical evidence.

Supporting the argument are a few examples (certainly not scientific) of people involved with reform around climate change ignoring the dangers of their own behaviors (something that seems common with doctors as well).

Posted by Noah in The Internet
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Geeking Out (YouTube edition)

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Adam and I are hanging out exchanging YouTube videos and I figured I’d just post a few of them for public consumption.

A bird strike test


A wing load test

A supersonic flyby (check out the shockwave on the water)

Nerddom defined (by way of Dilbert)

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Living the dream… hanging with the Barbarian Group

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

So why is an aerospace engineer from GE Global Research visiting GE Healthcare in Milwaukee?  I wish I could say it’s because I am finally realizing my dream of making the world’s first supersonic pulse detonation MRI machine, but the truth is that I took a wrong turn out of my driveway in upstate New York, and before I knew it – I was in Milwaukee.  Well – okay, that’s not really true. 

Seriously, I was lucky enough to arrange an escape from my regular day job at the Research Center in order to spend some quality time with the Barbarian Group.   I figure I have lots to learn in life  – so, well here I am.  

First off, Ben, Noah and Michelle are just really amazingly nice people, and our host, Sam, has done an incredible job organizing our visit.   Today was incredible – we spent the day learning about all kinds of GE Healthcare products and new initiatives.   I had never actually seen an MRI machine (let alone understood how it worked) – so this is all new to me.  Did you know that modern MRI machines use superconducting magnets that are cooled down to 4 K (-452 F) with liquid helium?  Uhh… that’s really cold.  Don’t worry, it’s all completely safe – the supermagnet just helps get very high resolution image scans.  

For me, it’s interesting because it’s very different from the 5000 K temperatures I used to study in grad school when looking at orbital reentry aerothermodynamics (like when the Shuttle returns to Earth).   I guess it’s a different world over here… hey it’s only brain surgery, it’s not like it’s rocket science (sorry - terrible joke – couldn’t resist).

Posted by Adam Rasheed in GE Healthcare Wisconsin
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We’re in Wisconsin!

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Benjamin and I are out in Wisconsin visiting the folks at GE Healthcare for the next few day, so things should pick up around here.

We have another chat with David Lee as well as about 20 other stops over the next three days and we’ll do our best to get stuff posted in the evenings.

Awesome.

Posted by Noah in GE Healthcare Wisconsin
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