Increasingly, hospitals have to find ways to optimise the capacity, efficiency and utilization of their MRI services. David Wormald, Integrated Assistant Vice President for Diagnostic Services at Hamilton Health Sciences & St. Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Canada, knows this problem in and out – and a few solutions on top of it.
"The problem between information technology and medical engineering may stem from sequential processing and intermeshing", Peter Gocke, MD, said. Sounds difficult? But the real difficulty in the “Cooperation between IT and Medical Engineering (ME)” is something seemingly mundane: “At the end of the day collaboration is the target achievable”, Gocke, who is IT director at the University…
The introduction of digital imaging in all fields of radiology and digital workflow using RIS and PACS has led to fundamental changes in the daily work of radiologist. Professor Davide Caramella, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology, University of Pisa, Italy, described how IT supports radiologists in their daily work and why radiologists need to keep up-to-date in IT.
How can speech recognition become a workflow improver instead of a road to frustration? Kaye Bonython, Programme Manager, Imaging Informatics & OSL, HCA’s Portland Hospital for Women and Children, really knows: She has driven a series of PACS-related enhancements in HCA organisation, including group-wide speech recognition reporting – that was in 2006. Now, 99.98 per cent of reports at HCA…
The global nursing shortage is due in part to a lack of faculty in nursing schools and to a phenomenon known as nurse migration, where nurses leave their country of origin to work elsewhere. In response, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), supported by The Elsevier Foundation, will conduct the Global Summit on Nurse…
Some of the most controversial issues in urology will be discussed by leading experts during the five-day 25th Annual Congress of the European Association of Urology (EAU) in Barcelona (ES). From April 16 to 20, close to 12,000 participants and 3,000 company representatives are expected to gather in one of the world’s biggest annual professional meetings in urology.
Under constant and continuing debate, and given the increasing use of CT and interventional imaging, the issue of radiation dose management was the focus of an ECR session with Dr Manthos Koutalonis, Medical Physicist at the Barts and The London NHS Trust – Radiation Safety Group, as moderator and presentations by three key speakers.
While biomarkers are acknowledged as useful tools in the early assessment of patient response to treatment, radiologists are less clear on how they can be applied in clinical practice. The ECR session Biomarkers: new word, new world, new work? explored a number of new applications for biomarkers with senior radiologists discussing their relevance in different areas.
Claudia Wild PhD (Phil.), Director of the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Health Technology Assessment in Vienna, Austria, studied communications & psychology at the University of Vienna and political sciences at the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, USA.
Prior to the imaging workshop , Meike Lerner asked programme organiser, Professor Thomas M Deserno (Dept. of Medical Informatics, RWTH) about current developments today and how they affect future input from imaging manufacturers.
The European Patients Forum (EPF) redesigned its website as a vital communication tool for its members and for the health community as a whole. This decision resulted in an improved website which offers a fresh new look that technically provides its online visitors with significant improvements in navigation and easier accessibility for users with disabilities. EPF President Anders Olauson…
Two Hitachi bundles, Discovery and start-up, which are currently only available in Germany, have been produced to enable more effective storage management. ‘Specialised consulting packages help medical facilities to achieve a reduction of costs caused by the deployment of more data-intensive diagnostic technologies or archiving regulations,’ the firm explains.
In an address inviting nurses and doctors to attend the 12th Düsseldorf International Endoscopy Symposium, held from February 5-6, Professor Horst Neuhaus and Dr Brigitte Schumacher outlined the events to be held for gastroenterologists, oncologists, internists, surgeons, interventional radiologists, nurses, trainees, students and industry representatives.
The idea of publishing a Textbook of Cardiovascular Imaging which accumulates the expertise of European cardiovascular imagers, is long awaited. The new textbook by the European Society of Cardiology is written with a patient rather than technology-based approach, helping clinicians to explain the condition to the patient, with the aid of imaging.
Clinical laboratory scientists, the medical technologists of the 21st century, are not only enjoying a rapidly expanding role in clinical work but are also increasingly undertaking non-clinical duties such as consultation, quality assurance, laboratory management, professional advocacy and education.
NAVA is a new mechanical ventilation method in which the ventilator is controlled directly by the patient's neural breath control, and is incorporated in Maquet´s Servo-i system.
Every November the exhibition centre in Düsseldorf becomes a beehive of activity for four days, when 17 halls are transformed into the biggest market for medical technology worldwide. The figures speak for themselves: more than 4,300 exhibitors – including the smallest newcomers to the global giants – cover almost 120,000 square metres where they will face thousands among the 136,000…
How can postoperative delirium and postoperative cognitive dysfunction be avoided? How is it best to address the problem of epilepsy? How can anaesthetists cope better with a patient death under anaesthesia? These difficult questions were among many addressed by specialists at HAI 2009, the annual conference of the German Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI). Report:…
Bettina Döbereiner continues her reports on theories, policy strategies and current projects aired in the Berlin conference Reducing Health Inequalities. What do we really know about successful strategies?
The use of IT in Russian medical institutions is still low, partly due to poor funding but also to a lack of understanding among managers of its potential. Most physicians consider treatment is their duty – not IT. They prefer to use special software only for accounting and staffing policy.
When over 3,000 international experts gathered at the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Munich, Germany to evaluate future trends, they heard that Asia is showing major gains in medical engineering — a field in which computer sciences are a key innovation driver – but that Europe is on the way to innovation leadership in telemedicine and e-health.
GE Healthcare is presenting its new Venue ultrasound product line at Medica. The Venue 40, the first product launched, provides visualisation for needle guidance procedures and rapid diagnostics in real-time at the bedside. These point-of-care (POC) settings are the fastest growing in ultrasound internationally (USA growth: 30% average in the last four years. Source: industry report by Klein…
A portable system designed for anaesthetists, the eZono accelerates the learning curve with the manufacturer’s patented Cue Cards, a multi-media learning and workflow tool for vascular access and regional anaesthesia - combined with excellent image quality, the manufacturer points out.
Bettina Döbereiner reports on theories, policy strategies and current projects aired in the Berlin conference Reducing Health Inequalities. What do we really know about successful strategies?
Der Frauenanteil im Medizinstudium hat mittlerweile die magische Grenze von 60% überschritten. Allerdings bleiben ca. ¼ aller Akademikerinnen kinderlos. Dennoch wird die Frage der Vereinbarkeit von Ärztinnenberuf und Familie zunehmend zur alltäglichen Managementherausforderung im Krankenhaus. Gleichzeitig sind so genannte Vereinbarkeitsfaktoren wichtige Attraktoren bei der…
