Half of COVID-19 patients who received a heart scan in hospital showed abnormalities in heart function, according to new research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The study, published in the European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging, found that around one in seven showed severe abnormalities likely to have a major effect on their survival and recovery. It also showed that one…
Artificial Intelligence is an essential tool for the healthcare operators on the front line in the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. ASST Vimercate Hospital chose and implemented in the midst of the COVID-19 emergency REiLI, Fujifilm Medical Systems’ Artificial Intelligence.
Hospitals can get noisy, especially intensive care units, and the life-saving electronic machines monitoring patient vital signs are making most of the racket. Mike Rayo, an assistant professor of integrated systems engineering at The Ohio State University, is working to improve and organize the cacophony to help caregivers and patients alike. For almost a decade, Rayo has collaborated on…
In the hustle and bustle of a hospital, properly disinfecting all surfaces in a patient room can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Now, in times of the coronavirus pandemic, it can also be life-threatening. To minimize the risk for their staff, hospitals are utilizing disinfection robots to sanitize surfaces and rooms. Read on and learn more about how some of those robots are used to…
Despite being at high risk of exposure to COVID-19, frontline healthcare professionals who were appropriately protected did not contract infection or develop protective immunity against the virus, finds a study from China published by The BMJ. The researchers acknowledge that the healthcare professionals were working away from home, so had limited social interactions after work, which probably…
The novel Coronavirus infection (severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2), which has led to the spread of COVID-19 around the world, has upset normal workflow in hospitals. The increased workload and stress, due to the necessity of implementing safe and separate diagnostic pathways, and the need to constantly monitor the development of the disease after its onset, continues to have a…
The Coronavirus dominates everyday conversation as well as medical and scientific discussions, but in a Leipzig hygiene congress, other topics – such as nosocomial influenza – took a strong position. Dr Andreas Ambrosch, head of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene at the Brothers of Mercy Hospital in Regensburg, Germany, presented a new study on the spread…
HM Hospitales, a leading Hospital Group in Madrid, decided to provide the international scientific community with totally anonymized health data regarding patients being treated for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their facilities.
The UK government should look to veterinary infectious disease know-how to end the current lockdown and abandon its financially ruinous strategy to manage the Covid-19 epidemic, argue two leading vets in a trenchant critique of official policy in this week’s Vet Record.
As many nations struggle to keep COVID-19 infection numbers down through increasingly tough public health measures, some point out the island of Taiwan presents an example of how to be prepared in the event of a pandemic. Located less than 150 kilometres from the original viral source – China – Taiwan has seen far fewer cases of the coronavirus in the past month, with a much lower infection…
The sense of fear is palpable in the images and videos of hospital intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency departments that are broadcast on television and posted on social media. Fear and heartbreak can be heard in the voices of physicians and nurses who describe what they are experiencing. It’s not as if healthcare professionals hadn’t warned United States residents and government…
Capturing all the possibilities brought by AI long-seemed a faraway dream for hospitals, since most artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are vendor dependent, thus complicating their deployment in clinical practice. However, the dream has become reality at Utrecht UMC, which launched a pioneering AI infrastructure able to monitor information and run any algorithm from its HIS, RIS and PACS.…
Cyber attacks on hospitals occur every day. However, if IT security works well, nobody needs even notice. But if defence measures fail the impact can be enormous and the outcry among the general public large. The new branch-specific security standard (B3S) of the German Hospital Federation (DKG) shows how hospitals can improve their IT security. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)…
Medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra has signed a digital pathology contract with the Dutch hospital Zuyderland MC. A digital pathology workflow makes it possible to access and share images and information between departments and hospitals. Storing, reviewing and sharing digital pathology images increases efficiency in primary diagnostics and improves cancer care by facilitating…
Patients with colorectal cancer have a greater chance of survival if they are operated in hospitals with a high case load. This is because complications that can occur after surgery can be better managed there. Tumours of the colon, so-called colorectal carcinomas, are the second to third most frequent tumours in women and men in Germany. The surgical removal of the tumours is a central component…
With over 100 exhibitors at the annual Radiological Society of North America conference using NVIDIA technology to bring AI to radiology, 2019 looks to be a tipping point for AI in healthcare. Despite AI’s great potential, a key challenge remains: gaining access to the huge volumes of data required to train AI models while protecting patient privacy. Partnering with the industry, NVIDIA…
Nosocomial infections cause more deaths than traffic accidents – a stunning discovery made in a recent German study. Worse: infectious diseases long thought eradicated in Europe, such as measles, tuberculosis (TB) and, more recently, syphilis, are also implicated. The increasing number of patients places an additional financial burden on healthcare. But – and this might be the good news –…
Refining hospital processes saves costs, improves workflows and patient care plus outcomes. To realise those aims, a hospital in the Netherlands has installed an Internet of Things (IoT) mesh network. A pilot project initiated by a Dutch children’s hospital has enlisted an entire ward as an Internet of Things (IoT) playground, to experiment with various type of tags, sensors and switches in a…
Temperatures rose significantly when a press release arrived at the Bundeskartellamt, Germany’s competition authority. ‘Does the Bundeskartellamt obstruct useful structural adjustments in the hospital sector?’ the release asked. Issued by the organisers of the European Health Congress, it claimed that the authority had blocked 40 hospital mergers. In view of a recent study by the…
The current introduction of instant access to all patient clinical imaging and medical documentation in one picture archiving and communication system (PACS) for use throughout the Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust (PAHT), in Essex, UK, lies in the hands of Imaging Systems Manager and radiographer Stephen Townrow. In 2017, Townrow went to his hospital’s Board with a business case to consolidate…
A new report by researchers at King’s College London has found that the widespread practice of routine ward rounds in England, known as intentional rounding, may not be the best way for nurses to deliver care to patients. The report also found that intentional rounding makes a minor contribution, if at all, to the way nurses engage with patients. The research was commissioned and funded by the…
Scientists at the University of Surrey have discovered that a natural antioxidant commonly found in green tea can help eliminate antibiotic resistant bacteria...
Nosocomial infections present enormous challenges for medical facilities, involving huge hygiene efforts from staff, on patients as well as medical and non-medical products. At MedtecLIVE 2019, in Nuremberg, Susanne Harpel (Dipl. Ing), Deputy Head of the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at Giessen/Marburg University Hospital, presented desirable contamination efforts during the…
In a busy hospital, thousands of devices and equipment are on the move every hour of every day. Beds, blood pressure monitors, wheelchairs, or infusion pumps can be taken to different locations and, at times, even ‘lost’. Keeping track of vital tools is a challenge, particularly given the massive throughput of patients and staff shift changes. However, innovative tracking systems are evolving…
New research has found that antibiotic-resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, an opportunistic pathogen that can cause respiratory and bloodstream infections in humans, are spreading through hospitals in Europe. Certain strains of K. pneumoniae are resistant to the carbapenem antibiotics that represent the last line of defence in treating infections and are therefore regarded as extremely…