Screening
and Prevention
Cardiovascular
disease and cancer are our top two killers, claiming more than
950,000 and 550,000 Americans each year respectively. Screening
tests for heart disease and cancer are among the many medical
tests made more accurate by NIST standards and calibrations. See
the links below for specifics on our efforts to improve the accuracy
of screening and prevention tests.
Clinical
Standard Reference Materials -- here's a list of currently
available NIST measurement reference standards for clinical labs.
Cholesterol testing has become much more accurate due to some
of these measurement standards.
See the NIST
Standard Reference Materials Program catalog for a listing
of all NIST SRMs.
You can find
more details plus documents and reports on the NIST
Analytical Chemistry Division home page.
Mammography
Calibrations -- NIST calibrates inspection and testing devices
used to make sure the optimum x-ray dose is used in breast cancer
screening tests. This helps improve image quality and reduce the
need to repeat tests.
Voltage
Determination for Mammography -- A NIST-patented invention
is helping improve image quality in mammography by calibrating
the electrical voltage which generates X-rays in a mammography
unit more accurately than any other field method. The device measures
electrical voltage very accurately when placed in the X-ray beam
and tells whether the actual voltage agrees with the radiologist's
prescribed voltage. The improved accuracy is improving cancer
detection and reducing radiation doses to women receiving mammograms.
Micronutrients
Measurement Quality Assurance Program -- On the cancer prevention
front, medical researchers worldwide are studying how vitamins
and other nutrients might deter the development of cancer. For
more than 15 years, NIST has been providing measurement standards
to assure the accuracy and comparability of measurements made
in different parts of the world.
Diagnostics
Doctors rely
on diagnostic tests to sort out patients' symptoms. Many of these
tests owe their high accuracy to a variety of NIST standards,
measurements, calibrations, and inventions. Follow the links below
to see what our researchers are doing to improve the accuracy
of diagnostic tests.
Nuclear
Medicine -- We provide measurement standards for medical tests
relying on radioactive isotopes. Every day 37,000 Americans receive
radioactive isotopes in cardiac stress tests, thyroid scans, bone
scans, and other scans of vital organs. Radiation levels in these
tests are measured with instruments that have been calibrated
against NIST standards.
NIST is also
helping with the development of new diagnostic devices through
its Advanced Technology Program.
The ATP co-funds high-risk, high payoff research with industry.
Several biotechnology firms and medical manufacturers have received
ATP funds for innovative projects that could lead to advanced
medical diagnostic devices. For example:
Third Wave
Technologies of Madison, Wis., used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop a new method of genetic
material analysis that gives each different piece of DNA in a
sample a unique "fingerprint" that looks like a bar
code, similar to those on supermarket products. The new method
is expected to lead to clinical tools for personalizing patient
treatment for hepatitis C, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Read
more.
GeneTrace
Systems of Menlo Park, Calif., used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop a novel, fully-automated
DNA sequencing system that is hundreds of times faster than conventional
methods and is being used to build research tools for drug discovery
and for biological studies. Read
more.
Affymetrix,
Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., won a NIST
Advanced Technology Program award to develop a miniature DNA
diagnostic device capable of quickly diagnosing a wide variety
of diseases for use in clinics, hospitals, and doctors' offices.
Read
more.
Amersham Pharmacia
Biotech of Cleveland, Ohio, won a NIST
Advanced Technology Program grant to develop enzymes that
make biomedical research and diagnostics more efficient. Read
more.
BioTraces,
Inc. of Fairfax, Va., used a NIST
Advanced Technology Program award to successfully develop
an ultrasensitive radioanalytical technology that can detect and
measure very low concentrations of biological substances. Read
more.
CuraGen Corp.,
of New Haven, Conn., used a NIST
Advanced Technology Program award to develop a new process
boosting the ability to analyze gene expression from 100 genes
simultaneously to 50,000. Read
more.
Treatments
NIST research,
standards, and measurements support an array of medical treatments.
In fact, some new cutting edge treatments would not be available
to patients without NIST help. Here's some of what we do to advance
medical treatments.
The NIST
Advanced Technology Prorgram is advancing new medical treatments.
PPL Therapeutics of Blacksburg, Va., has made strides toward developing
genetically engineered animals grown for human organ and tissue
transplants by incorporating ATP-derived technology into the process
that led to the world's first litter of cloned
pigs in March 2000.
Also with
co-funding from the NIST Advanced
Technology Program, Aastrom Biosciences of Ann Arbor, Mich.,
designed a bench top bioreactor capable of growing, outside the
body, large amounts of human stem cells isolated from bone marrow
for cell replacement therapy, potentially reducing the cost and
pain of treatment for cancer and other diseases. Read
more.
Dental
Dentists and
their patients can all smile a little wider thanks to research
at NIST. New dental tools and materials developed here over many
years are commonplace in dental offices. We're continuing to improve
dentistry. Here's how.
Biomaterials
Group
-- provides basic materials scinece, engineering, test methods,
and standards for new and improved biomaterials, dental materials,
and delivery systems. Contact: Eric
Amis, (301) 975-6681.
Paffenbarger
Research Center -- NIST and the American Dental Association
Health Foundation have engaged in cooperative research on dental
and medical materials research since 1928. Collaborations at this
center, located at the NIST Gaithersburg, Md., campus, have helped
bring about the modern high-speed dental drill, the panormaic
X-ray machine, and many dental materials. Contact: Frederick
Eichmiller, (301) 975-6813.
Improving
Efficiency in Health Care Delivery
The NIST
Advanced Technology Program has awarded several grants to
companies seeking to improve the flow of information between health
care providers. In 1997, the ATP sought proposals focusing on
information
infrastructure for health care . NIST awarded an estimated
total of $140 million for 32 ATP projects in this category. Some
of the completed projects are already yielding commercial products.
For example,
VitalWorks of Waltham, Mass., used Advanced
Technology Program support to adapt an existing computer note-writing
system to capture clinical data automatically through a pleasing
user interface. The new technology makes it easy and productive
for physicians to enter patient data directly into computers,
an advance that overcomes a major obstacle to the conversion from
paper to electronic medical records. Read
more.
3M Company
of St. Paul, Minn., used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop and demonstrate key
components of a data repository system to capture patient data
and integrate it with clinical decision support and knowledge
bases. Read
more.
Belmont Research,
Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop technology to help researchers
transfer, query, and mine complex health care data from a multitude
of scattered clinical and administrative databases. Read
more.
Berdy Medical
Systems, Inc., of Stony Brook, N.Y., used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop a data input system
for a computer-based patient record system that will allow computers
to recognize natural speech in a medical setting. Read
more.
Utah Health
Informatics of Salt Lake City used Advanced
Technology Program funding to develop a web-based knowledge
server technology that integrates general medical knowledge with
specific patient information. Read
more.
Another tool
improving efficiency in health care has resulted from an Advanced
Technology Program award to HT Medical Systems of Gaithersburg,
Md. The company developed a virtual reality system with a high
level of realism at a reasonable cost for training medical personnel.
The system can produce better skilled practitioners, less trauma
for patients, and reduced costs. Read
more.
Help for Manufacturers
NIST's
Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nationwide network
of assistance centers for smaller manufacturers in all 50 states
and Puerto Rico offers experts to consult with small to mid-sized
manufacturing firms. Assistance covers advice on ways to modernize,
increase efficiency, and take advantage of information technology.
Health care manufacturers are among the more than 100,000 firms
receiving assistance between 1988 and 2000.
For example,
the Oklahoma
Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence, helped 90-employee
company Morris Latex, a manufacturer of anesthesia breathing bags,
improve its production process and add in-line quality control
measures. This significantly improved product quality while reducing
waste to less than 1 percent and manufacturing costs by $120,000
per year.
Another MEP
center, the Florida
Manufacturing Extension Partnership helped Hoveround Corp.
of Sarasota, a wheelchair manufacturer, improve its computer-aided
design capabilities in order to develop a more durable, more
comfortable,
and more affordable wheelchair.
For
Medical Researchers
Protein
Data Bank--an international data bank of three-dimensional
structural data for proteins and other biological macromolecules;
freely available to researchers worldwide.
Quality
in Health Care
The Baldrige
National Quality Program recognizes business performance excellence
and quality achievement by U.S. manufacturers, service companies,
educational organizations, and health care providers. In 1999,
the Baldrige National Quality Program added health care as an
award category. Members of the health care community worked with
NIST in making this award a reality, recognizing that the Baldrige
Award's tough performance excellence standards could help stimulate
their improvement efforts as well. The Health
Care Criteria for Performance Excellence focus on two goals:
delivering ever-improving value to customers and improving overall
operational performance.
Biomedical
Materials and Devices
Standards
for Biomedical Materials and Devices: When it comes to standards
and measurements, the $42 billion biomedical device industry has
a lengthy to-do list. A new NIST publication lists more than 60
priority tasks, distributed across five categories of technology
and two cross-cutting areas. Read
more. (.pdf;
download Acrobat Reader)
Other
Resources
NIST outreach
programs work directly with business and industry to boost U.S.
economic competitiveness. Many health care providers and manufacturers
have benefitted by taking advantage of these programs.
NIST's
Advanced Technology Program spurs innovation in U.S. industry
by co-funding high-risk, high-payoff projects with private industry.
Smaller manufacturers
face many challenges in our technology-driven economy. To help
meet these challenges, NIST started the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership program in 1988. This nationwide network
of centers, now in all 50 states, has assisted more than 100,000
U.S. firms, including health care providers and manufacturers.
The Baldrige
National Quality Program recognizes performance excellence
and quality achievement by U.S. manufacturers, service companies,
educational organizations, and health-care providers. Health care
companies have been competing for the Baldrige Award since it
was established in 1988.
In 1996, ADAC
Laboratories, a Silicon Valley-based maker of high-technology
health-care products, won in the manufacturing category. In 1997,
3M Dental Products
Division also won in the manufacturing category.
Organizations
that apply for the Baldrige Award must address seven key criteria:
leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information
and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and results.
Each applicant receives a feedback report citing strengths and
opportunities for improvement. Winners and applicants alike say
the application process can yield significant process improvements
and is good for the bottom line. In fact, a fictitious ‘Baldrige
Index' made up of winning company stock has consistently outperformed
the Standard & Poor's 500 index. And thousands of other companies
have used the Criteria
for Performance Excellence to assess and improve their
overall performance.
