How can radiology become more sustainable? In a new focus article, radiologists outline concrete actions that aim to reduce the carbon footprint of any diagnostic imaging department.
Newster’s Frictional Heat Treatment enables hospitals to process hazardous solid waste onsite in a sustainable and cost-effective way. It is a sustainable alternative for the treatment of medical waste.
Curbing levels of harmful air pollution could help reduce antibiotic resistance, according to the first in-depth global analysis of possible links between the two.
Under the impulse of the European Commission, the in vitro diagnostic industry is developing emerging technologies to implement sustainable practices in medical laboratories. As sustainability has been a growing priority of the European Union (EU) in the last decade, ‘the medical technology sector, particularly the IVD sector, must comply with European legislation in this field like all other…
Iodinated contrast media (ICM) enhance CT imaging, but its single-dose packaging is increasingly proving at odds with modern, more sustainable imaging practices. New award-winning research by a radiology resident and faculty members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, proposes a promising alternative: A switch from using single-dose injectable contrast media kits to…
A new analysis of the carbon footprint of products used in the five most common surgical operations shows that 68% of carbon contributions come from single-use items.
Reducing the dosage of inhaled anesthetics during surgery can contribute to decreasing a hospital's greenhouse gas emissionses without affecting patient care, a new study shows.
Two surgeons-in-training suggest some sustainable solutions for their energy-intensive discipline.
Contrast agents in the wastewater and power-hungry imaging systems: The eco-footprint of healthcare is huge, and radiology departments are among the main culprits. An expert panel at the ECR Overture explored ways to make the field “greener”.
Blood cultures are important laboratory tests to diagnose serious infections. Contamination is a constant concern – a patient could be misdiagnosed due to a false-positive test. Initial specimen diversion (ISD) could radically change this.
Researchers from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University of Bonn have examined the way in which SARS-CoV-2 reprograms the metabolism of the host cell in order to gain an overall advantage. According to their report in Nature Communications, the researchers were able to identify four substances which inhibit SARS-CoV-2…
COVID-19 has rocked health care systems, revealing vulnerabilities in our supply chain, piling up unprecedented costs, and creating an alarming amount of medical waste. The health care sector was already a major source of pollution. The World Health Organization points to the burning and incineration of health care waste as a source of dioxins, furans, and particulate matter emissions that…
40 years ago, anticipating the huge impact of computers in radiology, a group of visionaries formed the Radiology Information System Consortium (RISC). In 1989, RISC created the Society for Computer Applications (SCAR) to promote computer applications in digital imaging. Those organisations became the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM). At SIIM 2020, a virtual meeting, experts…
Scientists working across drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, bioanalytical, pre-clinical and clinical trial applications can now access a range of digital reagent dispensers designed to enable assay miniaturization, boost productivity and improve accuracy of results. Offering enhanced dispensing precision, the new systems use ten times less reagent compared to manual pipetting workflows,…
Researchers from Australia are on the brink of commercialising the world’s most efficient lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery, which could outperform current market leaders by more than four times, and power Australia and other global markets well into the future. Dr Mahdokht Shaibani from Monash University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering led an international research team…
At RSNA 2019, GE Healthcare launches more than 30 new, imaging intelligent applications and smart devices designed to drive efficiency in radiology departments, aiming to double productivity and cost savings for systems by 2025. For healthcare executives, the new offerings help systems to save costs, improve technology utilization, and increase patient volumes. Clinicians also will benefit from…
The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for a further assessment of microplastics in the environment and their potential impacts on human health, following the release of an analysis of current research related to microplastics in drinking-water. The Organization also calls for a reduction in plastic pollution to benefit the environment and reduce human exposure.
The Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will be launching a new report by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) on introducing more automation in the NHS. As families and businesses face a 50 year high tax burden, the government has a duty to provide good value for money. The NHS is an essential service which needs to see further improvement and less money wasted.…
LBM Bioesterel in France, Arcispedale S. Maria Nuova in Italy and Friarage Hospital in the United Kingdom are among the first laboratories to install the Atellica Solution immunoassay and clinical chemistry analyzers. The trending motivators for installing the latest innovation from Siemens Healthineers include the unprecedented flexibility to automate redundant and complex procedures to simplify…
21st century challenges are multitudinous for all. Ageing populations, a changing disease burden; increasing obesity with associated morbidities – Type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease; climate change pressures and more. Any new build plan demands a low carbon footprint; respect for the environment is paramount. To capture all those elements, the plan to regenerate a previously 10…
‘The literature on hand washing, while extensive, often contains conflicting data, and key variables are only superficially studied, or not studied at all. Some hand washing recommendations are made without scientific support, and agreement between recommendations is limited,’ explained Professor Donald W Schaffner at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, who has led a team of researchers to…
Spanish researchers are challenging the validity of many past and ongoing clinical trials and stress the importance of working with raw or preprocessed data in genetic information study.
Radical steps have been taken to address a growing financial crisis facing hospitals across England. Under new rulings, NHS England will allow the worst affected hospitals to relax critical performance indicators, such as waiting time targets, as the NHS financial crisis deepens. Report: Mark Nicholls
Electronic radiology clinical decision support (CDS) systems, designed to help doctors order the most appropriate imaging examinations for patients, offer a way to practice better medicine, to reduce the costs of radiology and help increase patient safety by preventing radiation exposure from inappropriate or unnecessary exams.
Optimising protective operating theatre clothing in terms of comfort and durability enables significant amounts of waste to be avoided and valuable resources saved.
At this year’s meeting of the German Radiological Society (DRK), Dr Mathias Langer, Head of the Radiology Clinic at Freiburg University Hospital and the society’s 2013 President, assured EH that CT is still the be all and end all in trauma surgery.
This year’s EuroMedLab and IFCC-EFLM Congress came at a time when all hospitals face ever-increasing healthcare costs, aging populations and patients and GPs demanding more complex and novel diagnostic tests.
EKF Diagnostics has recently marked the production at its manufacturing facility in Barleben, Germany, of the 33,333rd Hemo Control, its globally successful haemoglobin point-of-care analyser, since its launch in 2003.
Late last year, at the German Hospital Procurement Congress in Berlin, we met with Durral R Gilbert, President of the US firm Premier Supply Chain Services, who was presenting cost-cutting strategies that reach far beyond reducing consumables and equipment prices – strategies that might also help hospitals in Europe.
Embarking on any business enterprise is never a small feat, but when that business is healthcare the task becomes gargantuan – and even greater if opening a healthcare facility in a country where the economies of scale create immediate difficulties. There’s also the problem of the main competitor being the free-of-charge public sector.
A mix of hardware, software and services, the Hitachi Clinical Repository (HCR) system draws together all patient data from many information sources, thus providing quicker and better use of records. At Hitachi Data Systems, Mark Clark explained: ‘HCR basically provides the infrastructure to put together both clinical and non-clinical data into a centralised, non-proprietary-repository to…
Siemens has incorporated three further healthcare products into its environmental portfolio: The Somatom Definition Flash computer tomograph, the Axiom Luminos dRF fluoroscopy system and the Ysio X-ray system have successfully completed both internal evaluation and an external audit. Backing up their clinical performance and energy efficiency, the devices present a convincing case thanks to their…
During RSNA, Philips announced the new Philips Ingenuity CT platform, an innovative technology that will help redefine low dose imaging. The Ingenuity CT features iDose4, Philips’ next-generation iterative reconstruction technique, designed to provide equivalent diagnostic image quality at up to 80 percent less dose; improve spatial resolution by up to 35 percent with up to 50 percent less…
Facing billion-euro deficits, European healthcare systems are putting hospital operations under the microscope to find areas where costs can be slashed dramatically, reports John Brosky.
A series of expert presentations organised by European Hospital in cooperation with the ECR addressed the latest issues affecting hospital management, information technology and fincance and attracted more than 400 attendees. Click here to read the summary of the five Management speeches.
In recent years, America's health care systems has been characterized as fragmented and expensive, and even unsafe. Part of the solution to these problems is the greater integration of health care data which offers the prospect of waste reduction; improvements in quality, patient safety and communications; and automated performance measurement.
Compared with private households, hospitals may only produce 10-20% of wastewater containing the residue of drugs; however, tackling the problem is very necessary.
'An effective, safe treatment for prophylaxis of restenosis in periphery and cardiology' — new generation of Endovascular Brachytherapy gains full CE-certification. Constricted blood vessels (stenosis and restenosis) can now sustainably be treated and kept open through the local treatment with beta radiation.
Lean Laboratory and Lean Automation are vital ingredients for the efficient and productive running of today's modern pathology laboratories. Automation serves as an essential endorsement to Lean, says Paul M Button, Senior Consultant at ValuMetrix, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics*
Barcelona, Spain - The Hospital Clinic is a tertiary level University Hospital that provides a broad range of services, from basic healthcare coverage to 550,000 people, to academic and advanced research activities. Hospital Clinic is a leading institution in certain pathologies, being the reference for Spain in different areas.
'Lean Laboratory' and 'Lean Automation' are vital ingredients for the efficient and productive running of today's modern Pathology laboratories. Automation serves as an essential endorsement to Lean, says Paul M Button, Senior Consultant at ValuMetrix, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics*
]UK — Leading up to his June departure as Prime Minister, Tony Blair highlighted his government's achievements in the National Health Service (NHS), particularly in the way technology has improved and is set to improve patient care.
With entries from infection control teams from all over the world, with each hospital facing different challenges and with widely differing resources at their disposal, judges working on the 2006/2007 Oxoid Infection Control Team of the Year Awards focused on teams that had demonstrated that they really made a difference to standards of infection control within their own hospitals and have set…
Osmolality is a simple, rapid and relatively inexpensive procedure that is important in the diagnosis of many physiological conditions, because the measurement of osmolality often provides information that cannot be obtained by any other method.
Many hospitals pay more attention to complex hygiene solutions they do on another, simple solution: hand washing.
Austria - A call for the EU and national governments to establish and extend a legal framework for environmental standards in society and healthcare facilities was made by the organisers of `CleanMed Europe´, the first European conference to focus on sustainable healthcare products and practices.
Ecomax - a brand new plug and play system for analogue X-ray film processing - is being launched at the RSNA by Protec Medizintechnik GmbH & Co. KG.