Children's advances stem cell research
News from Boston's medical and scientific community
Last week Children's Hospital Boston launched a new stem cell initiative, adding to the surge of local interest in one of biology's hottest research areas.
The Stem Cell Program, directed by Dr. Leonard Zon, will focus on adult stem cells that form the blood, liver, muscle, and nervous system. But the program will also include scientists working on embryonic stem cells, which can form any tissue in the body. Because of federal funding limits on embryonic stem cell research, the hospital has built separate lab space for that work, Zon said.
The announcement comes at a time when Harvard University, and all the Harvard hospitals, are putting together a massive effort in stem cell biology, called the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. The institute was launched in April, and recently hired an executive director, Charles Jennings, a veteran of the Nature Publishing Group.
The new Children's Hospital effort will work closely with the larger Harvard effort, Zon said. But the Children's program will be particularly focused on using the novel possibilities of stem cell biology to find treatments for medicine's youngest patients.
"This makes us completely distinct," Zon said.
GARETH COOK
Hospitals try out error prevention system
Three Massachusetts hospitals plan to test a new Internet-based program that searches patients' medical histories when they arrive in the emergency room. The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, a coalition of health insurers and providers, is funding the pilot project at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Boston Medical Center, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to test whether the system prevents medication errors.
Emergency room doctors now largely depend on the patient to remember all the medications he or she has taken recently. But the new system, called MedsInfo-ED, searches a database of the patient's health insurer for a more complete record, to better prevent dangerous drug interactions.
Doctors at the three hospitals will ask for a patient's permission before searching records -- unless the patient is unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate. Then the treating physician will authorize the search, and will inform the patient as soon as his or her condition permits.
LIZ KOWALCZYK
