
News • Social Media
The Hospital Twitter
Healthcare IT expert Dr Dieter Kramps, who focuses on safe IT, cloud, and mobile solutions in the sector, discusses social media in hospitals with Michael Reiter.

Healthcare IT expert Dr Dieter Kramps, who focuses on safe IT, cloud, and mobile solutions in the sector, discusses social media in hospitals with Michael Reiter.

Until now doctors had to use complex methods to get an accurate picture of a patient's body composition. The seca mBCA simplifies that complicated technology and after less than 20 seconds, it delivers all medically relevant data.

The new European network for exchanging medical records between countries is proving to be robust and reliable. But, it would not be Europe if someone didn’t shake it all up,’ says John Brosky.

Petabytes of data on each patient will become the foundation of future diagnostics and therapy. Genetics, imaging and environmental information – toxins, lifestyle – will deliver a precise picture of the individual, allowing for diagnostic precision and targeted treatments.

It seems medical records are too serious to be left to patients. Across hundreds of European e-health projects, the heavy spending in health information technology goes to building an electronic health record (EHR) that can be shared among health professionals.

For many years, MEDICA, the world’s largest medical trade fair, has devoted a special section to healthcare information technology. In an EH interview, Horst Giesen, Project Director of MEDICA, COMPAMED and REHACARE, spoke of the valuable insight into current medical IT that is offered to exhibition visitors

We are used to barcode scanning in supermarkets, our luggage being barcode tagged at airports and much else, Yet in healthcare the use of Automatic Identify cation Data Capture (AIDC) technology – such as barcodes or Radio Frequency Identify cation (RFID), is still rather rare, says Christian Hay of GS1* Switzerland.

The recent Swiss eHealth Summit, a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) event supported by key organisations, drew 600 leaders from hospitals, policymaking and the industry. Among the key topics: how IT enables access to information in a mobile environment, referred to by speaker Uwe Buddrus as mHealth.

Petabytes of data on each patient will become the foundation of future diagnostics and therapy.

Roche’s new information system aims to tackle the complexity and variability of clinical processes within and beyond laboratories.

Back in December 2011, when General Electric and Microsoft announced their joint venture, Peter Neupert, then head of Microsoft’s healthcare solutions group said: ‘This industry needs a Windows-like platform.’ This June their efforts resulted in an ‘all systems go’ for Caradigm IT products, which aim initially to enable hospitals and large private medical groups to use a realtime,…

One of the first medical imaging data archiving and sharing projects in France using CARESTREAM Vue Cloud PACS and Vue Cloud Archive is now operational. Data is hosted at the Roanne NumeriParc secure data centre (ISO27001 certified) in the Loire Region (south-east of France), and built around the Axione high-speed telecommunications network.

At ECR 2012 Carestream Health will showcase a raft of new products and services designed to help radiology professionals improve patient care. These include new healthcare IT offerings, advanced features for its medical and dental/ENT imaging systems and a mobile X-ray imaging system.

Med-e-Tel, the annual International eHealth, telemedicine and Health ICT Forum, organised by the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), an international federation of national associations that represent their countries’ telemedicine and eHealth manufacturers.

Networked communication is a critical factor in healthcare modernisation worldwide. A reliable, secure infrastructure and pplications adapted to the needs of care providers are essential in the transformation towards accessible, efficient, quality-driven care. Networking technology is Cisco’s core business. Newly appointed as Director of Sales, Public Sector, Cisco Germany, Cécile Willems is…

Medical notepads will soon be a thing of the past in doctors' offices and hospitals. More and more medical applications for smartphones and tablet PCs are coming onto the market, and many of them are introduced at Düsseldorf's MEDICA

Recognised globally for its hand-held instruments, Welch Allyn launched the Connex Electronic Vital Signs Documentation System and portable vital signs monitor at Medica last year. This year the firm is showing its Connex Integrated Wall System, an advanced vitals management and physical assessment solution combining all necessary examination tools in one neat, accessible wall unit. Using it,…

Improving the quality of healthcare, increasing the efficiency of the systems and ensuring patient empowerment - these are common goals worldwide when discussing the necessary transformation of healthcare systems to guarantee sustainable healthcare delivery in the future. The Global E-Health Forum – Hamburg 2011 will represent major stakeholders involved in designing personalised healthcare.
Delivering software for the exchange of information, based on standards – this is the aim of TianiSPIRIT GmbH. The software specialist with headquarters in Austria emerged from the PACS manufacturer Tiani Medgraph AG; the dynamic team focuses on solutions for Health Information Exchange in compliance with the guidelines of the initiative “Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise” (IHE).
The 3-day Med-e-Tel congress on e-Health, telemedicine and health ICT, drew over 300 international participants this April, when the organiser, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) in Zurich, also held its annual general meeting.

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…

Preliminary results from a large, ongoing study involving medical staff in 11 hospitals in six European countries indicate that Dell’s Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) system has made the use of applications easier for doctors and nurses, significantly increased efficiency in IT management and raised IT acceptance in the hospitals involved.

The new cloud hovering over the IT industry bodes pleasant and sunny business weather. Reason enough for the organisers of CeBIT 2011, the large international IT event held in Hanover this March, to make ‘cloud computing’ the keynote theme, dubbed ‘Work and Life with the Cloud’. EH reporter Walter F Schäfer questions what cloud computing is and what promise it might hold for healthcare…

Yesterday a newly redesigned website for IHE-Europe opened a window on the accelerating movement to electronic records across Europe, giving a new visibility to successful programs. The website at www.ihe-europe.net features links to five pan-European initiatives, nine national programs, and highlights success stories from regional implementations.

The eleventh annual IHE European Connectathon set for Pisa, Italy from April 11th to 15th, 2011 has rapidly expanded to a week-long program of activities that is attracting a critical mass of engineers and executives responsible for advancing e-health in Europe.