GE Healthcare launched Discovery NM/CT 670
GE Healthcare announced the European launch of Discovery NM/CT 670, a hybrid imaging platform designed to improve workflow, dose management, and overall image quality.
Economy
GE Launches $250 Million Healthymagination Fund
GE announced today the formation of the GE Healthymagination Fund, a new equity fund that will make investments in highly promising healthcare technology companies. The fund will invest in companies globally that have innovative diagnostic, IT, and life sciences technologies aligned with the strategic objectives of GE´s Healthymagination initiative. The fund will also support healthcare…
Siemens wins service contract from large US clinic
The University of Pennsylvania Health System, one of the largest health systems in the US, has awarded a $135 million contract for Integrated Service Management to Siemens Healthcare. Over the next seven years, Siemens will be servicing and ensuring around-the-clock availability of diagnostic systems and bio-medical devices from diverse manufacturers in the customer´s various hospitals.
EHFG 2009: Health Policy between Ethics and Finances
The economic crisis has considerably intensified the relationship between what is ethically desirable and financially possible. This is clearly demonstrated by the numerous events devoted to the subject of “Financial Crisis and Health Policy” in the scope of the 12th European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG). Around 600 participants in the areas of politics, health administration, medicine,…
Bureaucratic obstacles put brakes on innovations
With respect to the sufficiently rapid utilisation of innovations, European healthcare systems are inadequately prepared for the pace of innovation that has now been reached, representatives of the European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry (COCIR) said at the European Health Forum Gastein.
Cutting costs with medical technology
Medical technology innovation, often viewed as a cost-driver can also be the key to cost-cutting in healthcare while at the same time improve the health outcome for patients. This was the core message of an experts' panel organised by the European Health Technology Institute for Socio-Economic Research (EHTI) at the European Health Forum Gastein.
Hospital of the Future
Classic orientation around the number of beds in hospital planning will soon be obsolete in modern healthcare systems. Capacity planning must be oriented around the demand for health services and not the patients' length of stay, the authors of a new study on the necessary reforms in hospital planning demanded at the European Health Forum Gastein.
Will you survive the crisis?
Innumerable lives have been destroyed since the crash of the global financial markets last September. Fortunes vanished within hours and promising careers experienced a sudden end. But economic downturns like this not only lead to individual misfortune, but to a rise in suicides and homicides, unless governments respond with key investments in social and health protections.
Crisis threatens access to health and social services
According to leading economists, the current crises will hit the private sector heavily in 2010. Especially housholds in countries with poor social security networks will be affected heavily and are facing the danger of poverty. For healthcare systems this means an extra challenge additional to the burden of the demographic change. So the global economic crisis poses a massive threat to the…
Focus on financial and economic crisis
The 12th European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG), taking place from 30 September to 3 October 2009 in the beautiful surrounding of the Austrian Alps in Bad Gastein, welcomes around 600 participants from 41 countries to discuss the most pressing health topics with special regard to the current financial and economic crises.
European Health Forum Gastein
600 international politicians, economists, scientists, NGOs and healthcare organisations will discuss the effects of the global economic crisis on European healthcare systems during this autumn's European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG).
Advancing growth in the European HIS market
Although most European hospitals have some kind of information system in place, very few have a fully integrated and functional hospital information systems (HIS) solution installed. Increasing accountability pressures on the government and regulatory authorities to garner more investments into healthcare IT adoption is boosting the HIS market potential.
From cell to man to society
"We have taken particular care in organising the ESC Congress, as we are aware of the stringent competition with other congresses in the light of economic difficulties" ,said Professor Roberto Ferrari, this year´s Congress President. The result is that there will be 500 hours of ESC peer sessions, over 100 hours of industry sessions, accreditation by the European Board for Accreditation in…
Telemonitoring in cardiology: Who benefits?
Cardiology centres worldwide experience an almost exponential rise in the number of in-hospital follow-ups of patients with implantable devices or heart failure (HF).This not only strains the available personnel resources, it also means a rapidly increasing cost to healthcare payers, especially in fee-for-service reimbursement situations.
The 12th American Association for Clinical Chemistry meeting
This year's AACC, held in conjunction with the Canadian Society for Clinical Chemists, and the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, featured around 200 educational sessions and drew in over 18,000 delegates and exhibitors from almost 100 countries.
Germany´s university hospitals suffer economic crisis
Among Germany´s 2,087 hospitals, the country´s 32 university hospitals, employing 180,000 to care for up to two million patients, may appear to play a marginal role. However, their triad of research, education and applied medicine endow the university hospitals with enormous significance, for they not only represent medical science and research but also educate the nation's future physicians.…
Unfavourable findings on U.S. hospitals
The Leapfrog Group is a U.S. organisation of member companies that pay for healthcare services, e.g. corporations, health insurers and local, state and federal government agencies. Established in 2000, its philosophy is that big 'leaps' in healthcare safety, quality and value to patients will be recognised and rewarded. The organisation mobilises purchasing power of its members, representing over…
US healthcare
Karen Dente reports on a feverish summer for reformers
France prepares for another H1N1 outbreak
Experts predict that 25-50% of the French population could be affected by the H1N1 flu this autumn. According to Patrick Berche, head of the microbiology department at the Necker Hospital in Paris, the likely second wave of the epidemic would produce a great number of cases due to the highly contagious nature of the virus.
Microbiology lab automation
Full automation has now become the gold standard for clinical laboratories. Without hospital microbiology labs, which according to the Centres for Disease Control deal with 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths annually in the US alone, the growing threat of community-acquired and nosocomial infections could prove insuperable.
Wireless technology in healthcare: a multidimensional evolution
Healthcare in Europe is increasingly becoming digitised and there is growing need to develop and deploy sophisticated information systems. However, the wireless technology that is transforming various areas of business today is yet to be fully explored by the healthcare industry to support quality maintenance and improved efficiency.
Win a Dragon Medical 10 speech recognition software
Dragon Medical 10 the speech recognition software from Nuance, helps doctors and other medical specialists to achieve efficient and accurate clinical reporting.
The future of digital mammography
Digital mammography, which is considered the gold standard of breast imaging, has rendered image management and consequently the entire – purely on-screen – diagnostic process more reliable and more efficient.
Public health puzzle - inequalities in health
In almost all of the industrialised countries, the general health status - as indicated for example by infant mortality, prevalence of disease, subjective health and life expectancy - has improved during the last four decades. At the same time, however, there is a proven close correlation between good and poor health and high and low socioeconomic status.
