How Brain Mapping Research Could Improve Patient Outcomes & Lead to More Jobs Healthcare professionals who work with patients following a traumatic brain injury or stroke will be excited to learn all they can about the BRAIN initiative, a 10-year-project that President Obama unveiled this April. Congress is deciding, sequester or no, whether to grant $100 million for this groundbreaking research initiative; it would begin in 2014, with the goal of creating new healthcare jobs and better treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism and wide spectrum of brain disorders. The news from Capitol Hill comes on the heels of Mr. Obama’s February State of the Union speech, in which “Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies� (BRAIN) is expected to help neuroscientists understand how we think, how we remember, and how we learn. BRAIN is a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation, as well as private partnership with organizations like the Allen Institute for Brain Science—with backing like this, BRAIN is sure to take the healthcare industry by storm, just as mapping the human genome did last year. Obama’s BRAIN mapping project differs [+]

Every year researchers and scientists find ways to stamp out disease, improve patient care, and utilize technology to make doctors and nurses more efficient, accountable and exact. Thank goodness, or we would still be bloodletting and using morphine-laced syrups to treat teething babies. Can you imagine? Check out these Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs for 2012. They’ll be introduced at the Cleveland Clinic “Innovative to the Bone� medical summit in October. From sterile bugs to CT Scans for lung cancer, it’s pretty cool stuff and we wanted to share. 10. Genetically-modified mosquitos Millions of sterile male mosquitos were release in the Caymans in an attempt to reduced disease-carrying pest populations. It worked! The mosquito population dropped by 80 percent!  Who would have thought sperm-less mosquitos could help eradicate malaria. 9. SGLT2 Inhibitors Waiting for approval by the FDA, SGLT2 inhibitors flush blood sugar out of the body in urine. This massive medical breakthrough has the potential to shift diabetes treatment from insulin to eating habits in an attempt to catch the debilitating disease early. 8. Using Data to Curb Medical Mistakes Healthcare systems crunch data 24/7 in an effort to enhance medical prognosis, diagnoses and therapies; data vital to reducing patient readmissions and improving outcomes. Computerized patient care [+]