Blockchain technology and the associated crypto currencies have the ability to transform industries including healthcare. We suggest the decentralized and programmable nature of blockchain applications can be used to change health information technology to gain greater efficiency in public and private health care systems. Current public health information technology systems such as eligibility, enrollment and electronic health records have documented issues with interoperability and are slow to adapt to changing program and technology demands. We suggest that blockchain can potentially solve these issues. We argue that a public program such as the U.S. Medicaid program with $553 Billion in total program costs and over $25 Billion spent on health information technology and administration last fiscal year could benefit from the use of blockchain based distributed ledger and smart contracts. We finally argue that a decentralized benefits administration system can provide greater efficiency to enrollment, eligibility, claims payment and adjudication processes thus driving efficiency and reducing systemic fraud.

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OBJETIVOS: descrever os estados comportamentais dos recém-nascidos com peso inferior a 1500 g, em ventilação mecânica, antes, durante e após o cuidado mãe canguru (CMC). MÉTODOS: estudo do tipo quase experimental em que os estados comportamentais definidos como sono profundo, ativo, sonolência, alerta inativo, alerta ativo e choro de acordo com a Escala Neonatal de Brazelton foram avaliados em três momentos: 15 minutos antes do CMC, 30 minutos após o início da exposição e 15 minutos após o CMC num total de uma hora de exposição. Quarenta e quatro recém-nascidos pré-termo (poder estatístico >0,9), com idade gestacional média de 29 semanas e peso médio de 1096 g, intubados e estáveis do ponto de vista hemo-dinâmico, foram selecionados por amostra de entrada contínua. RESULTADOS: evidenciou-se o favorecimento do sono, principalmente o sono profundo (52,3%), comparado aos períodos antes (6,8%) e após (13,6%) (p<0,001) o CMC. Além disso, os recém-nascidos apresentaram sinais de dor após o CMC com diferença significativa (p=0,002). CONCLUSÕES: o cuidado mãe canguru, nas condições deste estudo, pode ser considerado como uma estratégia favorecedora para o desenvolvimento neurocomportamental.

Poor accessibility of healthcare facilities is a major barrier for people with disabilities when seeking care. Yet, accessibility is rarely routinely audited. This study reports findings from the first national assessment of the accessibility of primary health care facilities, undertaken in Brazil. A national accessibility audit was conducted by trained staff of all 38,812 primary healthcare facilities in Brazil in 2012, using a 22-item structured questionnaire. An overall accessibility score was created (22 items), and three sub-scales: external accessibility (eight items), internal accessibility (eight items), information accessibility (six items). The main finding is that the overall accessibility score of primary care facilities in Brazil was low (mean of 22, standard deviation (SD) of 0.21, on a 0–100 scale). Accessibility of different aspects of the healthcare facilities was also low, including external space (mean = 31.0, SD = 2.0), internal space (18.9, 1.9) and accessibility features for people with other visual or hearing impairments (6.3, SD = 1.0). Scores were consistently better in the least poor regions of Brazil and in facilities in larger municipality size (indicating more urban areas). In conclusion, large-scale accessibility audits are feasible to undertake. Poor accessibility means that people with disabilities will experience difficulties in accessing healthcare, and this is a violation of their rights according to international and Brazilian laws.