Author: Bobby Caina Calvan

Colin Autry, who is undergoing months of chemo for leukemia in isolation, uses the wireless Internet at Kaiser Permanente’s Roseville hospital as his mother, Pushpa Autry, waits nearby.Colin Autry, a 17-year-old cancer patient from Elk Grove, likened it to a life of solitary confinement, cocooned in a hospital room and…

Young doctors have taken to iPhones – could iPad be next?Apple’s new creation, the iPad, may be a novelty to many consumers, but hospitals are already starting to abandon paper-and-pen clipboards for hand-held digital tablets. In Sacramento, Kaiser Permanente is in the midst of experimenting with one brand of computerized…

Patient Joel Thomas, left, of Lincoln discusses his shoulder injury with Dr. Stephen Weber, an orthopedic surgeon. Weber conducted a study using platelet-rich plasma in a group of patients recovering from torn rotator cuffs; he concluded that the treatment didn’t make a difference.With Tiger Woods and Pittsburgh Steeler Hines Ward…

A Kaiser Permanente employee was fired last month after a computer storage drive, containing information on 4,000 Sacramento-area patients, was stolen from a car parked at her home, hospital officials reported Tuesday. The external drive contained data on as many as 15,500 Northern California patients, according to a statement from…

Clinical coordinator David Buettner, left, trains paramedic student Bobby Blanco on a birthing simulator at UC Davis Medical Center last week. UCD also has a lifelike dummy that can blink, breathe and on cue mimic a full-blown heart attack – one of many innovations being tried to cut costs and…