Every year, worldwide, over a million patients have a pacemaker or defibrillator implanted. Home monitoring systems can significantly improve the safety and quality of life for these patients, says Professor Gerhard Hindricks, head physician in the rhythmology department at Leipzig’s Heart Centre. Report: Sascha Keutel
At this year's European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG), several discussions focused on the increasing demands for new strategies to ensure equal access to high quality healthcare. The funding and pricing of medicines as well as universal access to healthcare were also addressed, as was the role of the EU in this area.
With more than 50,000 newly diagnosed cases each year, lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in Germany. As yet, however, very few statistics are available on the care situation of lung cancer sufferers and the associated costs. Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München have now analyzed comprehensive health insurance data in order to discover the cost of the disease and which…
‘Facilities management is the integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services that support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities.’ According to the European DIN-Norm (DIN EN 15221), this defines facility management (FM). As a control tool, FM encompasses all supportive processes within a company, in this case referring to a…
It’s a race against the clock; every hour counts in efforts to halt the spread of a disease, but identifying anyone with whom the infected patient has had contact is time-consuming, with Contact Officers generally collecting data on paper. Now, however, scientists from the Nigerian Field Epidemiology Laboratory & Training Programme, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, the Hasso…
An emergency physician-led workgroup has published five primary and seven secondary recommendations about how to maximize the value of health information exchange (HIE) in emergency departments. The recommendations were published online Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, and the American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology have released a set of clinical practice guidelines to address management of a patient's temperature during open heart surgery. The guidelines appear in the August issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery and were published simultaneously in two other journals.
The field is neither tedious nor monotonous; it’s fascinating every day, Professor Katharina Rentsch emphasises, when explaining the need to attract students to this often overlooked but intreguing and varied discipline.
Quality Control (QC) is a vital process for laboratories to monitor the accuracy and precision of patient sample testing. Without QC, laboratory errors could go undetected, potentially resulting in misdiagnosis and inappropriate or delayed treatment, all of which could be life threatening for the patient.
Zenon's Doc-db is a full-fledged document management system which has been internationally available since 2006.
The DGKL publishes a Translation of the Quality Standards for Medical Laboratories of the German Chamber of Physicians (RiLiBÄK). Report: Prof. Dr. Michael Neumaier
According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in recent decades the development of diabetes mellitus (DM) warrants the conclusion that this is among the most important global epidemics. Report: Walter Depner
The European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry (COCIR*) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS**) have renewed their cooperation agreement to progress their common goal of improving the use of information and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.
Digitizing pathology is not just a transformation of technology, the major change and benefits lies in the change to a more efficient workflow – enabled by the new technology.
Vienna is the perfect place for a symposium dedicated to ‘hospital construction and operation because, over the next 15 years, the Austrian capital will radically transform its hospital landscape. In the facilities of the Municipal Hospital Association Vienna (Wiener Krankenanstaltenverband – KAV) 32,000 employees care for 400,000 in-patients annually, making KAV one of the largest hospital…
This year’s German medical diagnostics manufacturers association (Verband der deutschen Diagnostica-Hersteller = VDGH) congress, focused on diabetes. The panel discussion that closed the evening session revealed unanimous support for the adoption of a German national diabetes plan. Report: Bettina Döbereiner
New figures for the UK’s key National Health Service (NHS) Trusts have revealed their total deficit of more than €1.1 billion for the year 2014-15. This rise on the previous year’s deficit of €160m comes against a backdrop of health authorities being required to find ‘efficiency savings’ of almost €1.4bn over the last five years. The NHS was also a major issue in the recent UK…
Although Romania joined the EU in 2007, only recently has its macroeconomic increases influenced a rise in a middle class and dented the country’s widespread poverty. However, development is still hampered by corruption and red tape in its commercial world. Report: Daniela Zimmermann/Brenda Marsh
The precise number of adverse clinical events is difficult to ascertain. Several international studies estimate that medical errors happen in 3-5% of all hospital treatments and that around 30-50% of these could have been avoided. A hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is also considered a medical error. Report: Anja Behringer
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) reissued its call for increased support of and safer working environments for nurses and other healthcare workers on the frontlines of healthcare. The call follows a preliminary report issued by the World Health Organization which states that of the 815 healthcare workers who have been infected by the Ebola virus since the onset of the epidemic, more…
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) demonstrates that technology invented by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University’s Casey Eye Institute can improve the clinical management of the leading causes of blindness. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography could largely replace current dye-based angiography in the management of these…
The German care system for patients with acute and unspecific chest pain is unique in Europe. The closely knit and countrywide network of accredited Chest Pain Units (CPUs) ensures fast and targeted diagnosis of acute cardiac events. The German CPUs may soon serve as a blueprint for other European countries. The German Cardiac Society (DGK) has already accredited the first institutions – others…
In the future, TAVIs can only be carried out in German hospitals with cardiac surgery departments and cardiac wards, as decided by the German Government’s Expert Panel on Health (G-BA) last January. An interim arrangement in force until 2016 is anticipated for Heart Centres that currently carry out the TAVI procedure without cardiac surgery departments on site. The Federal Ministry of Health is…
She is a neuroradiologist, professor, researcher and now the Medical Director of the Department of Neuroradiology at Dresden University Hospital. Her objectives are ambitious – be it in patient care, research or teaching. Professor Jennifer Linn MD wants to increase the quality of care, drive breakthroughs in research, ignite enthusiasm in students for their future profession and last, but not…
During the transition from child to adult many teens with chronic diseases somehow slip through the healthcare cracks between paediatric and adult medicine. Compliance deteriorates, regular check-ups are missed – an international problem, as many studies indicate. A promising programme, launched in Berlin, helps teens to manage this difficult change. Report: Bettina Döbereiner