If you have a webcam, you can make free video calls on WebcamCallFree and let your contacts see you as well as hear you. Webcam Call Free works well with most webcams, but if you experience any problems, follow these steps to test whether your webcam works with Webcam Call Free.

- Install your webcam, follow the instructions that came with it. If you don’t have a webcam, buy one on ShopWebcam.

- Download and install Adobe Flash Player. Webcam Call Free recommends you install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

- Click “Test Webcam.” This will open the test page where you should see what your friends will see when they video chat with you.

With the grand opening of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine less than three months away, work is wrapping up on the new stem cell research center located in the heart of the Torrey Pines Mesa research cluster.

You can see the progress live on this webcam set up by the consortium, which is made up of the Salk Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, the University of California San Diego and the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research.

The center is one of seven stem cell research institutes funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was created by California voters to pump $3 billion in taxpayer funds into the field.

CIRM provided $43 million for the La Jolla center, while another $30 million came from Denny Sanford, a South Dakota philanthropist who gave $20 million and his name to the Sanford-Burnham Institute in 2007. A grand opening ceremony for the stem cell research center is scheduled for Nov. 29. Watch progress on new stem cell research center: Click HERE

A new training method using a desktop webcam to improve ergonomic posture and reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among office workers using computers has been developed.

A multidisciplinary team at Ben-Gurion University  of the Negev imparted both office training and an automatic frequent-feedback system that displayed a webcam photo of a worker’s current sitting posture alongside the correct posture photo taken during office training to 60 workers.

The results showed that both training methods provided effective short-term posture improvement; however, sustained improvement was only attained with the photo-training method. Both interventions had a greater effect on older workers and on workers suffering more musculoskeletal pain. The photo-training method had a greater positive effect on women than on men.

“To maintain the effectiveness of an ergonomic intervention for the long term, the intervention should be a continuous process, which includes frequent feedback,” the researchers explained.

“This new ergonomic method can also result in preventing MSD among workers and reduce financial loss to their employers,” they said. The method of frequent and continuous feedback using photos was found to be effective in improving the sitting posture of computer workers over time. These conclusions have direct implications for many workers in industry and services. The study has been published in the forthcoming issue of Applied Ergonomics. Need a Webcam ?

Nurses who are required to communicate with people who are deaf have been urged by a charity to consider using an online interpreter. Satisfaction levels among death people over the healthcare they receive are lower than those experienced by hearing people, the 2011 GP Patient Survey revealed when it was published earlier this year.

Steve Powell, Chief Executive of healthcare charity SignHealth, said: “We have developed an online interpreting service called ‘SignTranslate’, which is accessed via a live webcam link to qualified British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters, and are hoping more health professionals will look at using the service.

“We developed SignTranslate to give online access to fully qualified interpreters at short notice. It provides instant help for healthcare staff who want to communicate with a deaf person. “Using a webcam the patient and interpreter can see each other and sign the conversation with the doctor or medical professional.”

The results of the latest patient survey mirror the findings from the three previous years, revealing that levels of satisfaction among deaf people over the experience with their GP has not improved. Mr Powell said: “If SignTranslate is available in every surgery, deaf people will be able to communicate more effectively with their GP, have a better understanding of their condition and therefore receive better healthcare.

“No specialist equipment is needed to use SignTranslate. All that is required is a webcam with a PC or laptop, and an interpreter can be available within minutes, making it much easier than using face-to-face interpreters, who often have to be booked a long time before an appointment.

“It also means there are no delays and no travel expenses. SignTranslate is free to sign language users and is very competitively priced for service providers.” There are no set up fees or monthly charges, health professionals will only pay for the time used, he added.

Bad winter weather, choked highways, overbooked schedules – these are all reasons more and more doctors are relying on webcam technology to keep an eye on patients. On January 2, health news website MyHealthDaily reported on the trend, citing a range of practitioners, from plastic surgeons to psychiatrists, relying on video conferencing technology to keep tabs on patients, provide emergency evaluations, or offer consultations.

California chronic pain and drug abuse specialist Dr. Gregory Smith said in the article that using WebcamPrivate has enabled him to save 350 to 500 appointments a year due to bad weather alone. “It’s almost as good as being there,” said Smith, whose two clinics in Los Angeles and Fresno have more than 1,300 patients.

Other web-camera benefits include allowing doctors to quickly check in with patients, or let sick patients keep their germs at home rather than bring them to an office. Also, plastic surgeons and other specialists can offer e-consultations with patients hundreds of kilometers away. Psychiatrists and mental health counselors can video chat with patients between appointments.

Other doctors, however, criticize the practice, citing the nuances in medical care that can only be conveyed during face-to-face interactions. Also licensing laws differ by country and, in some cases, region or state, and a doctor in the US state of California, for example, couldn’t provide medical consultation via webcam to a patient outside his or her home state. Also, doctors must ensure communication is secure and encrypted in a way that abides by local laws set to ensure patient privacy.

The report states that it’s difficult to cite exactly how many doctors now use webcams in their practices, or how widespread the practice is around the globe “because no agency tracks or requires doctors to report webcam use,” cited Gary Capistrant, senior director of public policy at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) in the article. But “it’s absolutely increasing,” he said, “and now that you’ve got those 4G phones where you can video conference from your cell phone, it’s going to be much more common.”

Another spin on house calls is a service called Stat Doctors, which uses a secure single sign-on, electronic health records, e-prescribing, and video conferencing to give patients 24-7 access to emergency physicians to address common, minor medical issues.

Someone invented online therapy… As if that AIM bot we played with as kids was not helpful enough?

The company is called Mentaline, and according to their Web site they will help you find a therapist or life coach online by browsing a directory organized by ailment and then let you talk to them about your problems via webcam.

Its CEO, Jesper Buch, is a self-described “man of ideas” whose previous project was a site that helped people in Europe order fast food through the Internet. In a promotional video, Mr. Buch’s cofounder Anders Schepelern calls Mentaline “the world’s largest therapy and coaching universe.”

No word yet on whether the service will integrate with Twitter and Facebook so you can share your shrink’s best pieces of advice with friends and coworkers.

Using an off-the-shelf digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have created an inexpensive device that is powerful enough to let doctors easily distinguish cancerous cells from healthy cells simply by viewing the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.

The results of the first tests of the camera were published online this week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

“Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms for diagnostic imaging,” said Rice’s Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the study’s lead author. “Based on portability, performance and cost, you could make a case for using them both to lower health care costs in developed countries and to provide services that simply aren’t available in resource-poor countries.”

Richards-Kortum is Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the founder of Rice’s global health initiative, Rice 360°. Her Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory specializes in tools for the early detection of cancer and other diseases. Her team has developed fluorescent dyes and targeted nanoparticles that let doctors zero in on the molecular hallmarks of cancer.

In the new study, the team captured images of cells with a small bundle of fiber-optic cables attached to a consumer-grade camera. When imaging tissues, Richards-Kortum’s team applied a common fluorescent dye that caused cell nuclei in the samples to glow brightly when lighted with the tip of the fiber-optic bundle. Three tissue types were tested: cancer cell cultures that were grown in a lab, tissue samples from newly resected tumors and healthy tissue viewed in the mouths of patients.

Because the nuclei of cancerous and precancerous cells are notably distorted from those of healthy cells, Richards-Kortum said, abnormal cells were easily identifiable, even on the camera’s small LCD screen.

“The dyes and visual techniques that we used are the same sort that pathologists have used for many years to distinguish healthy cells from cancerous cells in biopsied tissue,” said study co-author Mark Pierce, Rice faculty fellow in bioengineering. “But the tip of the imaging cable is small and rests lightly against the inside the cheek, so the procedure is considerably less painful than a biopsy and the results are available in seconds instead of days.”

Richards-Kortum said software could be written that would allow medical professionals who are not pathologists to use the device to distinguish healthy from nonhealthy cells. The device could then be used for routine cancer screening and to help oncologists track how well patients were responding to treatment.

“A portable, battery-powered device like this could be particularly useful for global health,” she said. “This could save many lives in countries where conventional diagnostic technology is simply too expensive.”

Co-authors of the paper include Dongsuk Shin and Mark Pierce, both of Rice, and Ann Gillenwater and Michelle Williams, both of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Roseburg’s Mercy Medical Center Emergency Room has a new way to connect local patients to out of area specialist doctors through a new internet connected webcam program. Equipped with high quality cameras microphones and speakers on a fully pivoting head, the machine is called an “InTouch Robot.” A doctor from a remote location can dial in have a face to face conversation with a doctor and patient about medical care, also doing some work of their own.  The machine can also collect and transmit medical data in real time to out of area doctors through connected equipment like a stethoscopes, heart rate monitors, and other basic medical devices.

OHSU is paying for the cost of the robot. Right now, the program will link Mercy Medical Center doctors to medical specialists in at OHSU or Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

As it stands, Mercy Medical Center will use the machine to help screen stroke patients and severe pediatric cases. Usually, patients involved in those cases are automatically transferred to Portland. OHSU and Mercy Medical Center doctors say this machine will help cut down on those patient transfers, leading to a huge cost savings in transportation costs. Typically, patients with severe stroke and pediatric cases are flown from Roseburg to OHSU or Doernbecher by a fixed-wing, small aircraft. Just one transit can cost $21,000.

Doctor Milles Ellenby of Doernbecher spoke to reporters today on his laptop, from a conference in Vancouver, B.C. He says the video quality is good enough to help doctors get the face to face they need for some cases. While medicine is often built on numbers, measurements and statistics, the emotions and immeasurable qualities of a visual visit can help doctors significantly.

“I’ve been on consults with the folks in Eugene and been able to see a child’s pupil response, by camera, so yeah, it doesn’t replace in person, but when in person isn’t possible is just much better than telephone only,” says Dr. Ellenby.

OHSU and Doernbecher are the only two hospitals linking with Mercy Medical Center right now. Mercy Medical Center officials say this technology could be used to link to other specialists and doctors across the nation and the world if a partnership is formed.