In intensive care units (ICU), some monitoring device or other is always sounding the alarm. Whether it’s a patient whose blood oxygen level is too low, someone in the next bed whose intracranial pressure is rising, or someone else whose blood pressure has taken a nosedive. Or perhaps just because a patient has shifted position in bed. False alarms like this last are all too common. They…
Carestream Health will showcase its latest version of Vue Clinical Collaboration Platform at the HIMSS 2019 tradeshow (Booth #2741) being held February 11-15 in Orlando, Fla. The latest release of its Clinical Collaboration Platform includes a zero-footprint offering with additional modules, as well as report analytics using natural language processing (NLP) to enable data-mining of diagnostic…
Pete Valenti, Hologic’s division president of breast and skeletal health solutions, talks about how AI is driving innovation in breast health technology. Underpinning that evolution more recently has been the acquisition of two organisations – digital specimen radiography specialists Faxitron Bioptics and BioZorb marker manufacturer Focal Therapeutics.
International SOS Foundation Launches New White Paper, endorsed by the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth and authored by Leading Legal Authority, Nathaniel Lacktman, Esq. and the International SOS Group Medical Director for Assistance, Dr Neil Nerwich.
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) are literally breaking barriers using ultrasound waves emitted from a flexible patch to accurately measure central blood pressure and help detect cardiovascular problems earlier. For a while now, smart, wearable devices have had the ability to capture how many steps we take in a day or measure our heart…
Professor Christoph M Friedrich researches the interface between man and molecule. Born in Westphalia, Germany, the professor for biomedical computer science at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences recently took up an additional role at the Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometrics and Epidemiology (IMIBE) in Essen University Hospital. In 2013, the cooperation between the two institutions…
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) able to deliver diagnostic advances for clinicians and patients, the focus has shifted towards ensuring the technology is used in an ethical and responsible way. As evidence emerges of a gap in research on ethical deployment of AI, Dr Gopal Ramchurn is embarking on a three-year research project that will look at setting parameters for AI usage, with a key aspect…
The ability to accurately check the position of the endotracheal tube for patients in intensive care units is crucial to their wellbeing and safe treatment. A pivotal element of this lies in identifying the position of the carina, a ridge of cartilage in the trachea that occurs between the division of the two main bronchi. Yet highlighting its location often proves problematic on portable chest…
Using technology similar to the type that powers facial and speech recognition on a smartphone, researchers at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have trained a computer to analyze breast cancer images and then classify the tumors with high accuracy. In a study published in the journal NPJ Breast Cancer, researchers reported they used a form of artificial…
Following a report from software firm Nuance Communications that suggests technology firms should consider shadowing nurses to fully understand their workflows and inform the creation of solutions that work for them, nurses’ views on technology and data are to be consulted in a new Royal College of Nursing initiative alongside NHS Digital’s chief nurse Anne Cooper.
In future, healthcare intelligent IoT solutions for real-time and location-based management of assets, employees and patients will be integral. ‘Medicosolution is working on holistic digital concepts for the healthcare sector and offers a platform for integration for existing solutions,’ the IT firm reports. ‘All processes can be tracked in real time,’ Max Schröfelbauer, its CEO,…
Cardiologists in the UK are trialling an artificial intelligence (AI) system that will help better diagnose heart disease. Devised by researchers from the University of Oxford, it can predict heart disease and cardiac events from ultrasound stress test images with initial results showing that the AI system is far more accurate than conventional techniques. Paul Leeson, Professor of Cardiovascular…
Here at Medica, the Taiwanese start-up Maisense is demonstrating Freescan, its artificial intelligence (AI) based solution to screen for stroke through the early detection of atrial fibrillation (AFib). Speaking of the system’s aims, Maisense summed up this huge health problem. ‘Every four minutes, someone dies of stroke. Thirteen percent of these are classified as haemorrhagic stroke. When…
A 4G symbol next to the signal strength bar on a smartphone assures fast data transmission. 5G, the next generation of technology, is already waiting in the wings and could herald a new era for tele-surgery, PD Dr. Michael Kranzfelder is convinced. However, there are a few obstacles to overcome first.
Spain has powerful regional e-health projects, but implementing a national strategy remains a complicated task. Lack of interoperability and low resources slow down data sharing across 17 autonomous communities, and sometimes even within the same region, key experts in the field explain. Although Spain transfers skills to its communities, everyone can benefit from emergency and primary care…
Successful pilot scheme means TERR-eSanté will be rolled out for the whole of the Ile-de-France. The French have a reputation as early adopters of telemedicine driven by the desire to modernise healthcare by the judicious use of the latest technology. The first ‘carte vitale’ (national health card) with a microchip was introduced in 1998. Since 2011, the information stored on the cards has…
Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) created a veritable hype. However, that initial awe was increasingly mixed with apprehension about the potential effects of AI on healthcare. In radiology, bleak dystopias are conjured up with AI replacing the human radiologist. A scenario that Dr Felix Nensa considers premature, to say the least.
The Danes have shown for some time how e-health can work successfully on a national level. The health portal sundhed.dk (= health), initiated in 2001 and launched in 2003, is part of the public healthcare system. As of January 2018, the Danish national strategy describes sundhed.dk as a national access point for personal health-related data for hospitals, general practitioners and communities,…
The selection of a first-line chemotherapy drug to treat many types of cancer is often a clear-cut decision governed by standard-of-care protocols, but what drug should be used next if the first one fails? That’s where Georgia Institute of Technology researchers believe their new open source decision support tool could come in. Using machine learning to analyze RNA expression tied to…
A deep neural network algorithm called BOTA uses bacterial genomes to identify unrecognized bacterial antigens.
A new dimension in data handling is not only emerging, but is already a reality in our lives. However, political discourse about this often lags behind real events. We spoke with two experts who have an overview of clouds, decentralised data flows and the evaluation of personal data with IT help in various areas. Engineer Professor Alexandra Dmitrienko is a Secure Software Systems expert at the…
Checking a lump for malignancy, finding out if food is fresh, just with your smartphone? It’s possible, according to Eindhoven University of Technology researchers in the Netherlands. Their recently presented spectrometer is small enough to insert into a smartphone. This device is not yet ready for use on a big scale, Professor Andrea Fiore, supervisor of the Eindhoven research team points out.…
Standardised and well-structured data, as well as the definition of clear objectives, are indispensable prerequisites for artificial intelligence implementation into clinical processes. ‘Ask not what artificial intelligence can do for you but what you can do for artificial intelligence!’ This variation on John F Kennedy’s famous quote comes from Dr Ben Glocker, Senior Lecturer in Medical…
Innovative virtual reality (VR) technologies hold promise in reducing children’s anxiety and pain before and after medical procedures and surgery, suggest two studies that were presented at the Anesthesiology 2018 annual meeting. The first study found virtual reality hypnosis (VRH) reduced anxiety, total postoperative opioid consumption and vomiting in children after scoliosis surgery.…
Imagine a first responder answering the call to a natural disaster, a house fire, or an active shooter incident where there may be multiple injuries and unknown casualties. The information the responder needs to fulfill the mission is immeasurable. When you also consider the volume of data they receive from other responders, dispatch, command centers, victims, and onlookers while receiving and…