Considerable literature finds greater cost efficiency under private provision of cleaning services in hospitals. Since the 1980’s the private sector has increasingly provided public services based on the argument that this would increase efficiency through competition.
In May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that bacterial infections might lead to an increasing number of deaths because new resistance mechanisms threaten our ability to treat common infectious diseases.
This year’s Journées Internationales de Biologie (JIB) in Paris (8-11 October) will include the new France-Germany Forum on its opening day.
‘Why should something that works for the automotive industry not also facilitate leaner processes in pathology?’ Walter Depner decided to look at The Institute of Pathology in Bern, Switzerland, where the concept was tested for three years.
If you were lucky – or unlucky – enough to have visited a medical central lab 20, 30 or even 40 years ago and know how such a facility looks today, you will probably think you are in some kind of time warp.
The current ebola outbreak in West Africa, which began in December 2013 in Guinea and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Congo, is considered the largest ebola outbreak ever in West Africa. As of today more than 2,600 cases were reported and more than 1,400 people have died of the disease.
Vygon, the specialist single-use medical devices group, today announces its acquisition of Medwin, a company based in southern France, specialized in enteral nutrition (feeding pumps) and related accessories.
By recognition and early intervention against the most significant risk factors, many heart diseases can be prevented.
CardioSecur, a personalised mobile 12-lead ECG system with four electrodes for iPhone and iPad, enables patients to monitor their symptoms and transmit the data to their physicians in less than a minute.
Medical technology still is among the fastest growing industries worldwide. However, the growth of the demand volume even in emerging markets is less based on volume expansion but more driven by targeted investments in modern systems and procedures.
Carestream is receiving orders from healthcare providers around the world for its new Carestream Managed Print Solutions (MPS), a comprehensive, web-based, pay per print programme that tracks laser imaging film usage, and remotely monitors and delivers film inventory according to each facility’s needs. This comprehensive programme saves both time and money for healthcare providers.
The risk of terrorist attacks, nuclear-radiological hazards, power outages and epidemic-pandemic infections as well as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and fires are increasing worldwide. Mass casualty incidents, or MCIs, provide a constant reminder of why hospitals need a plan in place to be able to function optimally during and after a catastrophe.
The numbers of ‘suicide tourists’ going to Switzerland to take their own lives has doubled within the space of four years, reports a study published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Acquisition to further industry innovation with a combined $650 million annual R&D investment Complementary client bases expand global presence.
Frost & Sullivan Life Sciences Senior Research Analyst Sriram Radhakrishnan discusses the available screening options to enable early detection of the virus.
Whilst participants at the ‘Boundary-less Hospital in Health Care Networks’ conference, organised by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management (CASiM) at Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL) in mid-June agreed on the need as such, there was plenty of room to discuss exactly which changes could make the German healthcare system future-ready.
Beckman Coulter, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR), announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the clinical microbiology business of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.
Even though a lot of us don’t do it, let’s say you know that washing your hands is the first, and the best thing, you can do to stop sharing nasty bugs that are especially dangerous for patients.
‘Better hygiene’ is the frequently and loudly recommended panacea in the intensifying struggle against hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). However there are currently no evidence-based studies that evaluate the efficacy of additional hygiene measures.
Free fertility treatment should be banned for those making "lifestyle" reproductive choices, such as sterilisation reversal or single motherhood for fertile women. And fertility clinics should be subject to carbon capping schemes, in a bid to help curb climate change, argues a bioethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental illness is associated with a significant burden of morbidity and disability.
Although nosocomial infections and medical accidents have declined, over 750 hospitals with the highest number of such cases now face penalties – amounting to an estimated $330 million a year – issued by Medicare.
Pointing out that it is unacceptable that some 300,000 people become adversely infected while being in the care of the UK’s National Health Service every year, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care, has launched a new set of quality standards.
More than four million people acquire a healthcare associated infection (HAI) in the European Union (EU) annually; of these 37,000 die as a direct consequence of the infection, according to a European Centre for Disease Control 2008 estimate.
The UK’s first Specialist Emergency Care Hospital is on target to open for the first patients in 2015.