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White paper on cybersecurity

The Global Diagnostic Imaging, Healthcare ICT, and Radiation Therapy Trade Association (DITTA) has now released its new White Paper on cybersecurity, which shares best practices in the medical technology manufacturing environment. The document identifies a series of industry best practices and guidelines that medical technology manufacturers can implement to improve their cybersecurity sophistication within their manufacturing facilities and engineering processes. The white paper (PDF, 559K) can be viewed and downloaded from the DITTA website.

European EHR exchange format paves way for interoperability

COCIR welcomes the adoption of the European Commission’s recommendation on a European Electronic Health Record (EHR) exchange format. As Europe’s leading trade association for the medical imaging, radiotherapy, health ICT and electromedical industries, COCIR is pleased that the Commission has taken up COCIR’s recommendations to extend the information exchange of patient summaries and ePrescriptions to include laboratory test results, medical discharge reports and images/medical imaging reports. "Digital health solutions play a critical role in the delivery of integrated care, but these need to be truly interoperable to be fully effective", COCIR writes in their statement. "To make interoperability a reality, we need the support and trust of the European Commission, Member States and other stakeholders within the healthcare community." Read the whole statement on the COCIR website.

Neurodegeneration Challenge Network secures funding from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropic endeavor led by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his partner Priscilla Chan, announced the launch of its Neurodegeneration Challenge Network. This new network brings together experimental scientists from diverse biomedical research fields, as well as computational biologists and physicians, to understand the underlying causes of neurodegenerative disorders. “Neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease, and ALS, are a class of diseases that affect millions of people worldwide,” says CZI Science Program Officer, Katja Brose.The CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network now seeks to address these gaps by launching a collaborative network to focus on neurodegenerative diseases. More details on the network at the CZI website.