Pediatrics Guidelines and the Kindle Fire

Lots of news this week from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Kindle Fire debuts.

It’s been a busy fall so far for pediatricians; new information regarding immunization for adolescents was published recently, and the AAP has released new guidelines for the management of urinary tract infections and determining brain death, new policy statements on polio virus and use of Tdap, and recommendations for phototherapy in newborns with hyperbilirubinemia. For parents adopting internationally, there is a new policy statement on hepatitis A vaccination.

Also, I wanted to include a reminder that the AAP annual meeting is coming up next month in Boston, with Friday, October 7^th being the last day that you can register online to attend.

Turning to health care tech news, I recommend that fans of mobile computing check out the Engadget blog from the Amazon tablet event, where the Kindle Fire tablet was unveiled. At $199, the newest Kindle is certainly cost effective. It’s built on the popular Android system, and it’s owned by Amazon, which potentially gives the user access to some pretty great content. But will it compete with the iPad? Probably not -- at least initially, anyway. Apple’s cult status has the iPad currently mowing over everything else in the market, and the iPhone 5 will allegedly be unveiled next week.

For those of us who are not convinced that we need a tablet yet, however, the Kindle Fire price and the company that backs it might just be the push we needed.