Methodist Medcial Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Associations Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Methodists commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, Methodist achieved at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators and achieved at least 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures during that same period of time, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care. These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients In addition to the Get With The Guideline-Stroke award, Methodist has also been recognized as a recipient of the associations Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50 percent of the hospitals eligible ischemic stroke patients have received tissue plasminogen activator, or … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (May 24, 2012) Understanding the genetic diversity within and between populations has important implications for studies of human disease and evolution. This includes identifying associations between genetic variants and disease, detecting genomic regions that have undergone positive selection and highlighting interesting aspects of human population history. Now, a team of researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, UCLA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Israel's Tel Aviv University has developed an innovative approach to the study of genetic diversity called spatial ancestry analysis (SPA), which allows for the modeling of genetic variation in two- or three-dimensional space. Their study is published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics. With SPA, researchers can model the spatial distribution of each genetic variant by assigning a genetic variant's frequency as a continuous function in geographic space. By doing this, they show that the explicit modeling of the genetic variant frequency -- the proportion of individuals who carry a specific variant -- allows individuals to be localized on a world map on the basis of their genetic information alone. "If we know from where each individual in our study originated, what we observe is that some … Continue reading →

Rutgers University will study the genetic makeup of soldiers at risk for suicide or psychological issues, thanks in part to a national grant that the school has received. The Rutgers Cell and DNA Repository was awarded $2.4 million by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine to conduct the study, which is part of the Army STARRS (Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers) initiative. Army STARRS will survey 55,000 active-duty soldiers though June 2014. It is the largest study of military personnel of its kind. Blood samples have been sent to the Rutgers repository, the largest university-based one in the world providing analyzing services for DNA, RNA, cell lines, and genetics, the university said. Rutgers officials hope the research will help determine whether there is a genetic predisposition to mental-health disorders and why some soldiers are at risk for suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder while others are more resilient. The suicide rate of active-duty military increased 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, according to a study by the U.S. Army Public Health Command. - Angelo Fichero Read more here: Rutgers studies genetic link to military suicides … Continue reading →