IT

News • Managing occupancy rates

How technology and data modelling can save hospitals from overcrowding

Overcrowding is a challenge that faces numerous hospitals across the UK. The burden of managing occupancy rates can immediately turn into a major issue that puts immense pressure on hospital staff, patients and their families alike. Studies show that when capacity rates increase above 92.5%, the death rate in hospitals can expand exponentially. It can represent one-in-seven mortalities amongst…

Article • Virology

Digital epidemiology in the Covid-19 war

Digital epidemiology is on the frontline in the Covid-19 war, with innovative techniques used to observe and monitor this viral spread across populations. Its increasingly important role was outlined to a virtual session at Medica 2020 by theoretical biologist Professor Dirk Brockmann. In a keynote presentation ‘Perspective of digital epidemiology – opportunities, promises and challenges’,…

Article • Early imaging assessment of Covid-19

Robot-assisted tele-ultrasound on 5G

Ultrasound specialists at the Hainan Hospital of Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital in Sanya and the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital of Hangzhou successfully conducted robotic tele-ultrasound examinations over a 5G network of four patients with confirmed and suspected Covid-19. They were in Tongxiang and Wuhan, cities some 2600+ kilometres distant.

News • spotlight at virtual.MEDICA

Digital health is on the rise due to COVID-19

MEDICA in Düsseldorf is a world-leading platform for the medical technology business and the healthcare industry and has always been one of the places to be for the entire sector as it covers current digital health trends, innovative products and services for linking all of the major stakeholders in medical care. Consequently, digital health is a mainstay of virtual.MEDICA, which, due to the…

News • Norwegian healthcare region

Digital pathology added to existing enterprise imaging solution

International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra has signed a digital pathology contract with the Norwegian healthcare region Helse Vest RHF. The healthcare region already uses Sectra’s enterprise imaging solution, which will now include digital pathology. The region-wide solution allows Helse Vest to share resources among healthcare providers, and using the same system for…

News • Joint Imaging Platform (JIP)

If the data won't come to the algorithm...

The new Joint Imaging Platform – JIP for short – is a flexible, decentralized analysis platform for medical images. The JIP was initially developed for the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) sites. It is designed to facilitate cross-institutional imaging projects and to help meet the technical and legal challenges associated with the joint use of imaging data.

News • New pandemic-related features

Imaging platform to support remote patient observation

Sony has announced an update to its vendor-neutral medical imaging platform Nucleus. This version built in direct response to the pandemic, introduces remote patient observation with new recording functionalities for use in the operating room (OR), Intensive Care Units (ICU), endoscopy suites, interventional rooms or anywhere else in the hospital.

News • Machine learning

AI performs similar to traditional risk prediction models

A study published by The BMJ finds that machine learning models have similar performance to traditional statistical models and share similar uncertainty in making risk predictions for individual patients.

News • Computer-aided detection

Olympus launches AI-powered endoscopy platform

Olympus Corporation announced the launch of Endo-Aid, a platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that includes the endoscopy application Endo-Aid CADe (computer-aided detection) for the colon. This new AI platform enables real-time display of automatically detected suspicious lesions and works in combination with Olympus’ recently introduced EVIS X1, its most advanced endoscopy system…

News • Managing coronavirus testing

Successful pilot study for new COVID-19 screening management software

With COVID-19 testing an important part of controlling the spread of the virus, finding an effective software system to manage the testing process and collate the results, on a national level and individually within businesses, hospitals, care-homes and schools etc., is essential. Thomson Screening developed SchoolScreener Imms in order to manage health testing within schools, but with the…

News • DNA analysis platform

Performing whole genome data analysis in just a few hours

Research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, imec, announced elPrep5, the newest version of its software platform for DNA analysis. Obtaining identical results, elPrep5 is eight to 16 times faster than the genome analysis toolkit (GATK) — the widely-accepted standard reference. The imec platform encompasses the full analysis pipeline from data preparation to variant…

Integrated OR and hygiene belong together

According to the German Federal Ministry of Health, 400,000 to 600,000 patients are diagnosed with hospital-acquired infections every year. The treatment of these nosocomial diseases is complex. Hygiene is a must, especially in the operating room. The IT environment should be designed accordingly.

Article • Digitising healthcare

Virtual assistants and digital twins advance personalised medicine

Siri and Alexa are leading the way: the virtual assistants meet many daily needs. Soon, similarly programmed software and a ‘digital patient twin’, will be launched into the medical world – both IT applications based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The virtual medical assistant and digital patient twin are two key aspects of a research project ‘Models for Personalised Medicine’.…

Article • Video consultation on the rise

“A patient’s home has to become a mobile diagnostic centre”

There are many reasons why for some patients a visit to the doctor’s office is difficult or well-nigh impossible – limited mobility after surgery, old age, or a handicap. For others, particularly in rural areas, the doctor is often far away and/or difficult to reach due to poor public transport. In times of corona, another important issue emerged: infection protection.

Article • Need for modernisation

Digital pathology: Luxury or necessity?

The anatomical pathologist faces a crisis. Public and private labs suffer increasing caseloads, whilst pathologist numbers diminish for various reasons, including greater cancer prevalence associated with aging populations as well as improved cancer screening programs. Precision medicine typically involves more genetic testing and extensive use of immunohistochemistry to classify cancer and…

Article • High-capacity digital image analysis

Spatial statistics extract subvisual features

Spatial analytics offers greater clarity in the assessment of tumours beyond routine microscopic analysis. High-capacity digital image analysis enables new methods of spatial statistics to extract features not immediately distinguishable by visual inspection. These subvisual features reflect complex properties, such as intratumour heterogeneity and have the additional benefit that they can target…

News • Commercial partnership

Inspirata and Fujifilm Europe join forces in software distribution

Cancer informatics and digital pathology solution provider Inspirata announced a commercial partnership with Fujifilm. The partnership enables Fujifilm to supply and service Inspirata’s scanner-agnostic, CE IVD digital pathology workflow software globally and with exclusivity in the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

News • vaccine development

Scientists collaborate over new COVID-19 data portal

More than 73,000 users collaborate on new online platform set up by the European Open Science Cloud Initiative, where scientists share COVID-19 data and accelerate our understanding of the virus to help develop treatments and vaccines quicker.

News • Psychotherapy delivery

Chatbots can 'nudge' patients away from opioid use after surgery

Patients who need surgery to fix major bone fractures use fewer opioid pills after their procedure if they're reminded of their values – and those reminders don't necessarily need to come from a doctor, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. “We showed that opioid medication utilization could be decreased by more than a third in an at-risk patient…

Video • Deep learning application

COVID-19 cough camera: device detects location of coughing sounds in real-time

The Center for Noise and Vibration Control at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced that their coughing detection camera recognizes where coughing happens, visualizing the locations. The resulting cough recognition camera can track and record information about the person who coughed, their location, and the number of coughs on a real-time basis. Professor…

News • Showcased at virtual ISMRM meeting

MRI image analysis and workflow software platform launched

Random Walk Imaging AB (RWI), a company developing novel software solutions for diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), announced the launch of its first commercial software product for clinical researchers and radiologists. The dViewr Powered by Mice Toolkit is the result of a collaboration with Nonpi Medical AB, with whom RWI has entered into an exclusive license and development agreement…

News • Shedding light into the 'black box' of AI

Neural network helps explain relapses of heart failure patients

Patient data are a treasure trove for AI researchers. There’s a problem though: many algorithms used to mine patient data act as black boxes, which makes their predictions often hard to interpret for doctors. Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and the Zhejiang University in China have now developed an algorithm that not only predicts hospital readmissions of heart…

News • Wearable technology

Smart watches and fitness trackers: useful, but may increase anxiety

Is my heart beating slightly fast? Is a heart attack coming? I didn’t sleep as much as I thought I had last night – is that bad for my heart? Health apps and fitness watches can shed considerable light on how our bodies work and make recommendations for a healthy lifestyle. However, self-measuring can have a downside too, according to a new study that examined the experiences of 27 heart…

Article • Imaging informatics meeting

SIIM 2020: Glancing back at 40 years and ahead to the future

40 years ago, anticipating the huge impact of computers in radiology, a group of visionaries formed the Radiology Information System Consortium (RISC). In 1989, RISC created the Society for Computer Applications (SCAR) to promote computer applications in digital imaging. Those organisations became the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM). At SIIM 2020, a virtual meeting, experts…

News • Demographic disconnect

Covid-19 drives telehealth (but older people might get left behind)

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a significant increase in video visits between patients and their doctors, but for many older adults, the shift has cut them off from care, rather than connecting them. A study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco has found that more than a third of adults over age 65 face potential difficulties seeing their doctor via telemedicine, with…

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