Feb 27
The Daily Mail details a medical report which says that young women should try improving their fertility through natural means, like diet and exercise, before turning to IVF treatment. The report says that although IVF is perfectly safe, it can be costly, and due to the embryo implant procedures used, can result in multiple births where babies are more likely to be born prematurely.
American single mother Nadya Suleman, hit the headlines recently after giving birth to octuplets, bringing her brood to 14. Suleman conceived all 14 children through IVF. Suleman had 8 embryos implanted when a woman of her age should have no more have two.
Feb 25
The BBC continue their great coverage of dentistry news stories with their latest report on lab-grown teeth. You can read all about it here.
A US team have located the gene responsible for growing enamel, exciting news that could change dental care as we know it. Lab fostered enamel could now be used to repair and replace patients' damaged enamel, eliminating the need for fillings and dentures, music to an dentist-phobe's ears!
The Daily Mail also reported on this news here.
Feb 24
Yelp, the review site that provides us with "real people, real reviews" has received some media attention recently. And not the good kind. The San Fransisco based East Bay Express newspaper recently uncovered some unsavoury dealings on the part of Yelp, with the story being picked up by The Health 2.0 Blog and the Look and Taste Blog. It seems that Yelp sales staff are manipulating customer reviews on the site, so as to increase advertising revenue. Restauranteurs are being told that negative reviews can be removed or moved further down the list. All for a monthly fee of $299.
Of course review sites should work hard to monitor reviews and weed out any that are maliciously posted by competitors, but this type of manipulation on the part of Yelp totally undermines the community feel of the customer review site.
Incidentally, the San Francisco Chronicle recently ran a story about a legal case concerning Yelp. A chiropractor is sueing a former patient due to unfavourable reviews he posted on the site. We wait to see the outcome of this case and the effect it could have on the part that customer reviews can play online.
Feb 24
Ita O'Kelly had an interesting feature piece in the Irish Times back on Tuesday 10th February. She looked into dental treatment in Northern Ireland and in the Republic, and noted that many Irish citizens are travelling over the border for treatment, due to the weak pound. This is something we have noticed at RevaHealth, website users from Ireland are looking at dental clinics in the North. Dentist Martin MacAllister of Cavehill Dental Care is quoted as saying, "Within the last six months we are receiving about 12 new inquiries per
day, which translates into about 30 new patients per week.”
Ray Gordon of the The Irish Dental Association was also quoted, warning patients to "make sure that they are actually comparing like with like in terms of both materials used and procedures followed."
Feb 23
Congratulations to all the winners at the 2009 Blog Awards! Best Technology Blog went to Jason Mason of taint.org and The Blacknight Blog won best Blog of a Business.
A full list of winners can be found here.
Feb 18
The BBC have always paid good attention to what is going on in dentistry in the UK and have had a couple of interesting pieces up on their news site over the last couple of days.
The first is an examination of why so many people are afraid of the dentist and the differences between a simple dental anxiety and a more complex dental phobia. This comes on the back of a tragic case where an eight year old girl starved to death after having her milk teeth removed under sedation.
The second exams the research of Professor Chris Drinkwater's inquiry into dentistry, and his finding that the move "to a more preventative approach has failed to materialise". This was one of the main reasons for the oft talked about New Contract in 2006.
Feb 12
We’re going to be at the BizCamp “user generated business conference” at the Digital Hub on March 7th.
BizCamp is dubbed as a chance to cheer ourselves up and look on the bright side during these days of financial woe and doom. Caelen will be sharing his hard-won pearls of wisdom from the world of fundraising along with other Irish entrepreneurs like Niall Harbison of LookandTaste.com, Campbell Scott of IGOPeople and Keith Bohanna of dbTwang.
Click here for a full list of attendees.
Feb 11
The people at Twitter must be pounding their heads on their desks by now. Their excellent social networking idea is currently making nada for them, but lots for other savvy Tweeters, like Walter Higgins from Sxoop Technologies. Walter has just launched the Twitter Mosaic. You enter your Twitter username to view a mosaic off all your Twitter followers. The next step is ever more clever, as you can buy a mug, t-shirt, bag or busines card emblazoned with their pretty faces.
Very cute. Very clever. Nice one Walter! We expect to see a few Tweeters proudly wearing their follower t-shirts at the Dublin Twestival!
Feb 10
We always like to hear back from patients who have found clinics through RevaHealth.com. But we're not really sure what to make of the following, which popped into Dave's inbox yesterday.
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At first glance, it appears to be a Bulgarian mushroom catalogue. Which is great, I mean who doesn't like mushrooms? But no, on further inspection, there is a post-it attached. And the post-it has been written by someone who found a Bulgarian dentist through RevaHealth.com. So the catalogue must actually be about Bulgarian dentists. A-ha, mystery solved! All those years of watching the Crystal Maze have really paid off.
Now all we have to figure out who the mystery patient is. So if you're out there, please let us know! We'd love to find out more about your experience in Bulgaria. Send Aoife a line on amurray@revahealth.com.
Feb 09
We're going to be attending the Microsoft BizSpark and Digital Media Forum Innovation Accelerator in Dublin on February 24th. There are loads of great speakers lined up including a good few familiar faces (Steve Collins, Siofra Flood, Chris Horn, Niall Harbison, and Joe Drumgoole), and it'll be a great chance for a lot of Irish start-ups to meet and share some ideas.
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