Europe`s healthcare sector faces strained labour relations
Current staff crises are leading Europe`s hospitals to show strong interest in talent management, according to human resources management software provider unmantis.
Economy
Siemens Healthcare wins largest order in Latin America
Siemens Healthcare has won the largest order for medical imaging equipment ever awarded to one single supplier in Latin America. Over the next three years, Siemens will deliver 60 highly innovative imaging systems and software to the private investor Alliar.
GE and Microsoft aimed to launch Joint Venture
General Electric Company, through its healthcare IT business, and Microsoft Corp. announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organizations and professionals use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience. The Launch is expected in first half of 2012
Cloud computing - Assessing the role of providers today and tomorrow
Walter F Schäfer explained in EH-2-11 that the term cloud computing designates a novel technological approach whereby the user no longer purchases and maintains physical IT infrastructures and applications but accesses server capacities, software solutions and entire system environments via the internet, deciding which services he needs at that particular time. Here he examines how this on the…
Ranking healthcare systems worldwide
Does France provide the world’s best health service? How is a good healthcare system defined? Who decides that one healthcare system is better than another? What do we expect from a healthcare system? The answers depend on your perspective, says EH Paris Correspondent Jane MacDougall
Documentation and certification
The German Society for Interventional Radiology and Minimally Invasive Therapy (DeGIR) has been developing its nation-wide quality assurance programme since 1987. ‘We launched this instrument very early and on a voluntary basis. Other medical associations have been forced to do so by law,’ explains Professor Arno Bücker, Member of the Board at DeGIR and Director of the Clinic for Diagnostic…
USA: The new Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
In 2012, Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital will be in transition, with a change of name as well as location, when its top class technology, physicians, scientists, staff and patients transfer to a new state-of-the-art complex three miles away.
Radiology in Poland - a constantly developing field
In an interview with Daniela Zimmermann, Professor Jerzy Walecki explained the implications of that role and the state of radiology in Poland today.
MEDICA 2011 - This year's Trends & Topics!
MEDICA 2011 in Düsseldorf (16 - 19 November) promises an "explosion" of novelties from the medical technology industry. The more than 10,500 new products registered by exhibitors at the MEDICA.de Internet portal are not the only indicators. The MEDICA PREVIEW press event already provided a preview of the most significant trends and product highlights.
PACS improves care in Italy’s largest children’s hospital
Located in Vatican City in the heart of Rome, the Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù not only profits from a literally blessed base but also from an advanced IT-infrastructure in the radiology department. For over a year and a half, the largest children’s hospital in Italy has worked with the Carestream PACS, connecting the institution with two cooperating sites, one in Palidoro, one in St.…
Organisation and technology as factors of success in A&E
Point of care technologies (POCT) have an important, quality enhancing, risk-reducing and cost-impacting role within the extremely time-critical medical decision structures of a central Accident and Emergency department, says Professor Wilfried von Eiff, Centre for Hospital Management, University of Muenster, Germany.
Assessing potential benefits in PET/MRI examination
In recent years, combined examination methods have increased, whereby two examination methods are used in a parallel examination, rather than performed separately. Frederik Giesel MD, Associate Professor of Radiology at the Nuclear Medicine Department, University of Heidelberg, and Philip Herold (Dipl. Econ.), Project Manager at RICT Heidelberg, report on the benefits.
Alpinion Medical Systems - Aiming to soar in the league tables
The goals are ambitious: Although in the market merely four years, the start-up firm Alpinion Medical Systems states its intention to become one of the prime providers in the ultrasound mid-range price segment. In an interview with Daniela Zimmermann of European Hospital, Thomas Roth, Alpinion’s Managing Director, explains his corporate strategy and conviction of success.
Mobile surgery firm steers towards Italy
Having secured significant contracts with hospitals in Sweden and the Netherlands, the UK-based mobile surgical services firm Vanguard Healthcare aims for further expansion in Europe. Mark Nicholls reports
OrthoMIT
More than 30 clinicians, researchers and industry partners (including Siemens, Aesculap and SurgiTAIX, an RWTH spin-off) are working on OrthoMIT, Germany’s largest collaborative orthopaedic research project that aims to develop future strategies for knees, hip and spinal surgery. Anja Behringer reports
EHFG 2011 - ‘There are too many unnecessary operations!’
Participants at European Health Forum Gastein 2011 (EHFG) agreed: the tendency in Germany and Austria is to operate far too soon (particularly for hip, knee and disc surgery), and many surgical interventions are unnecessary, posing a particular and increasingly urgent problem especially in industrialised countries. Hans-Christian Pruszinsky reports
Personalized medicine could help to save 100 billion Euros
Despite huge increases in spending over the last three decades, progress in dealing with the most frequent and burdensome diseases is appalling. The EU Flagship Pilot IT Future of Medicine (ITFoM) could remedy that. The flagship‘s investments of 1 billion euros in the course of the next decade are expected to save up to 100 billion euros per year in health expenditures in the future.
World Health Summit 2011
The World Health Summit, to be held in Berlin on October 10 - 13, 2010 will bring together researchers, physicians, leading government officials and representatives from industry as well as from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and health care systems. Its aim is to address the most pressing issues that medicine and health care systems will face over the next decade and beyond and to develop…
Civilisation Diseases breaking economic growth
More than 63% of all deaths in the world are caused by so- called non-communicable diseases. In the WHO-region of Europe it’s even higher – 86%. The direct and indirect economic costs are huge – to the point of posing a real threat to growth in crisis-hit economies. Therapy alone is not enough, World Bank strategist Dr. Armin Fidler told the European Health Forum Gastein. Effective…
From CR to DR
Breathtaking though the rate of improvement in medical imaging systems may be, many hospitals remain locked into their various evolutionary stages – depending on their needs and capabilities. With its versatile portfolio, Carestream Health, provides choices to meet their diverse circumstances.
Referral management and referral cooperation
‘New market dynamics’ in healthcare, with characteristics such as crowding out, internationalisation of medical services, increasing transparency of services due to the media, and price-oriented reimbursement systems, enforce quality promoting and cost-reducing labour divisions as well as cooperation of all players in healthcare provision. Professor Wilfried von Eiff, from the Centre for…
Purchasing diagnostic systems
The acquisition of large diagnostic imaging equipment is clearly expensive – but further costs also result from their energy consumption and maintenance, as well as hidden costs due to complicated, labour-intensive handling, removal and disposal of old equipment, etc. often not considered during purchasing. Report: Anja Behringer
Russia’s new healthcare legislation
The initial bill on The basic principles of healthcare for the citizens in the Russian Federation passed its first reading in the State Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia. Upper house: Federation Council of Russia). The current healthcare legislation came into effect in 1993. Since then, much has changed in Russian society, writes EH correspondent Alla Astachova.