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NIST and Health Care |
| NIST is connected to your health care system in ways that you might not have expected, including the fire safety systems of hospitals and the safe and proper use of radiation for mammographic procedures. | As for the medical practice
that goes on inside of medical facilities......
NIST has established the primary X-ray standards by which mammographic equipment at the more than 10,000 mammography centers in the United States can be calibrated. The accuracy of the measurements required for making pills, solutions, suspensions, and other drug preparations containing specific amounts of pharmaceutical agents also depend in many cases on standards developed and maintained at NIST. Same goes for many of the laboratory and clinical measurements used in medical diagnoses. Most notable among these perhaps is a series of Standard Reference Materials for measuring cholesterol developed in the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory. These have reduced uncertainties in cholesterol measurements significantly thereby reducing the number of misdiagnosed patients--those incorrectly diagnosed as having dangerous cholesterol or those who actually do have risky cholesterol levels yet are not diagnosed as such--and contributing significantly to savings in physician and hospital health care costs. As for the hospital buildings themselves...... According to a study conducted by NIST's Office of Applied Economics in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory, a NIST-developed method to help hospitals determine the most cost effective fire safety systems that meet federal regulations has led to an estimated nationwide savings of over $559 million. And the healthcare information infrastructure that consumers and industry rely on is increasingly critical as medical spending tops $1 trillion and healthcare is now the fastest growing market in the computer field. NIST plays a key role here through the Advanced Technology Program for Information Infrastructure for Healthcare. This focused program is helping industry to develop critical information infrastructure technologies to enable enhanced, more fully integrated medical information systems across the healthcare industry, increasing accessibility and uniformity while greatly reducing costs and errors in handling medical information. AND HERE IS A LIST OF ADDITIONAL LINKS THAT INDICATE NIST'S MANY PLACES IN YOUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: |