Europe's unequal healthcare
Christian Pruszinsky reports from the 11th European Health Forum Gastein in Austria: `Achieving the level of healthcare of the older EU member states will remain a long-term project for new members´ .
Education
First permanent international healthcare marketplace to open in New York City in 2013
The world's first permanent international healthcare marketplace and education center will open in less than five years, the key players driving the project said today, as plans for the Midtown Manhattan tower have been finalized and marketing has begun.
Care and patient safety
One of the major nursing congresses in the German-speaking countries is the Southern German Nursing Day which took place on 7 October 2008 at the University Hospital Munich. One focus of this year's event was the question whether and how modifications of and curtailing nursing services will impact patient safety.
Education for the best disease management
At the opening of the Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Institute in Paris experts took the opportunity to warn against the growing incidence of diabetes. They reinforced the believe that improved education measures as a key enabler for patients to better manage the condition. They predicted that in 2025 the number of people with diabetes wil have increased by 20 percent in Europe.
New e-learning tool for NHS employees
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) from UK installed a new educational programm on the internet called eHealth. The courses are free of charge for employees from the National Health Service (NHS) and shall improve the health community's ability to respond effectively to major incidents and emergencies.
Hearing tests for newborns
A hearing test screening, designed to detect hearing impairments in newborns, shell help prevent irreversible and permanent hearing problems in about 2000 babies in Germany per year. From 1 January 2009, this test might be covered by the statutory health insurances
RT-dashboard for perioperative departments
Theatre management is one of the most challenging jobs in a hospital. Picis offers a solution: Recently it has launched the Picis Perioperative Dashboard, a Business Intelligence (BI) solution for the perioperative areas of the hospitals in Europe.
Are nurses the better GPs in primary care?
"Should nurses replace GPs as frontline providers of primary care?" This question was discussed controversy by Bonnie Sibbald, Professor of Health Service Research, University of Manchester, (pro) and Rhona Knight, portfolio GP, Leicester, (contra) who alleged their reasons on the British Medical Journal website
Robot-assisted prostatectomy in practical use
At the Medizin Innovativ 2008 congress (9-10 July, Nuremburg, Germany) Professor Jens-Uwe Stolzenburg MD (right), Director of the Urology Clinic and Polyclinic at the University Hospital Leipzig, talked about his experiences with the da Vinci robot. Used by surgeons at University Hospital Leipzig since last October 2007, they performed 40 operations in the first two months.
Laparoscopy in urology
Laparoscopy is playing an increasingly important role in urology and centres of excellence have been established to provide training in urological laparoscopic surgery.
Sono-elastography
Martini Clinic, in the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) campus in Hamburg, is one of the world's major centres for nerve-sparing prostatectomy. The Martini physicians not only specialise in surgical intervention but are also at the cutting edge of diagnostics, being among the few in Germany to use sono-elastography, an innovative tool to detect prostate cancer. We asked Dr Georg Salomon (GS),…
Courses for future hospital managers
Today hospital managers have to meet varied and complex requirements. Their field of activities covers multiple disciplines and the decisions they make are of far-reaching significance for the future positioning and economic viability of their hospitals or hospital group.
Essential: Training staff for sudden disasters
The doors of the accident & emergency department fly open. An explosion occurred at a nuclear power station.
Leadership tools for healthcare managers
But how is this best achieved? Although various authors suggest methods to attain effective leadership, their approaches are not always uniform. Here he reviews some of the literature and authors' advice.
Germany's Muslim patients
A new Turkish patient is admitted. What would almost any nurse think? "The whole family will always be there", says health economist Fatemeh Pohl-Shirazi. "In Muslim cultures illness makes someone the centre of attention and the whole family wants to show compassion — which unavoidably changes normal hospital routine. The patient's room will always be full, with visitors coming and going, and…
Muslims and healthcare in the United Kingdom
Britain is a primarily Christian country. It is also home to people with various religious beliefs who have migrated here from many parts of the world, or are British born. In a 2001 census, 72% of the population identified itself as Christian.
The needs of migrant patients
In hospitals all over the world people of very diverse cultural backgrounds come together, whether as employees in various roles, or as patients. This means that hospital teams must deal with diverse needs, cultures and languages.
EHFG
The programme for this year's European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) - its 10th gathering - covers a far broader range of topics than before. During over 20 plenary sessions, forums and workshops, with about 120 lectures, key topics that embrace European and the national health politics of EU member states will be presented and discussed by experts.
Heart Failure Congress
Among the many aims of the Heart Failure Association of the ESC is the establishment of networks for the HF management, education and research.
Website advice for HF patients
A new educational website specifically for heart failure patients, their families and carers, has been set up by the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.
EuroPRevent 2009
This year sees the fifth anniversary of EuroPRevent.
Hypertension worldwide
Countries vary widely in their capacity to manage hypertension, but globally the majority of diagnosed hypertensives is inadequately controlled. Not treated it can cause cardiovascular disease (CVD), myocardial infarction and stroke. According to the WHO, hypertension is estimated to cause 4.5% of the current global disease burden and is as prevalent in many developing countries as in the…
euHeart
Royal Philips Electronics is to lead `euHeart´, the new European Union (EU) funded research project that aims to improve CVD diagnosis, therapy planning and treatment.
Hot topic cardiovascular imaging
Every summer the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) holds Europe's biggest annual meeting of specialists in cardiovascular medicine, inviting and drawing in top international medical professionals. Karoline Laarmann asked Professor Kim Fox, President of the European Society of Cardiology and Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, and professor of clinical cardiology at Imperial…
The source of medication errors
US- researchers found that inpatients experience an average of nearly one and a half potentially harmful errors in their medication record during a hospital stay. They started the search for the causes: admission and discharging are the most dangerous situations.
