Surgical simulations can save lives, Anja Behringer reports Medical errors occur more frequently than traffic accidents and clearly better systems are needed to improve patient safety. Thus the importance of medical training using human simulation models is increasingly emphasised in Germany.
Berchtold has been among the world’s leading manufacturers of quality surgical equipment for almost 90 years, today offering operating theatre lights, tables, ceiling supply units, video and camera systems, information and communications systems and customised surgical solutions. Recently the firm launched a radically new surgical lighting system. We sked Jochen Weisser, the firm’s technical…
This week, university hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar in Munich, Germany, is the first hospital in the world to operating Brainlab’s Curve Image Guided Surgery system. Curve is Brainlab’s latest generation of image-guided surgery systems. The new technology provides surgeons with better guidance and control during surgery enabling faster, more precise and safer interventions.
Step by step, the Helsinki Declaration is being implemented: Great Britain and the Netherlands have made it law. In Germany, it is voluntary. Report: Susanne Werner
Excising the entire cancer tumour from the stomach prevents relapses. This procedure can now be performed endoscopically. Holger Zorn reports from the Visceral Medicine 2011 Congress in Leipzig.
They are rarely noticed but nevertheless they carry a lot of weight in a hospital: intelligent mounting solutions for medical equipment and monitors. While the eyes of physicians, nurses and patients alike tend to be fixed on the device, hardly anybody ever looks at the way, the device is fixed to the wall or the ceiling. The engineers of CIM med, based in Munich, Germany, however did have a…
Operating theatres are highly complex and costly hospital areas. The smoother everything runs, the better. Instant access – in emergency or planned cases – to the patient’s radiological examinations is vital, as is the seamless integration of images acquired during surgery.
Ziehm Imaging’s C-arm is a general X-ray unit. It’s what hospitals really need, says Timo Ihamäki, the firm’s business manager, because ‘It’s a mobile unit that can be moved to the OR, out of the OR, to the trauma room, A & E, or wherever needed -- it’s always in the hallway. Whoever needs it, takes it.’
Unique software embeds an extensively annotated normal template into a patient’s axial images, Vinodh A Kumar MD reports from the Division of Diagnostic Imaging and Physics, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, Texas
More than 30 clinicians, researchers and industry partners (including Siemens, Aesculap and SurgiTAIX, an RWTH spin-off) are working on OrthoMIT, Germany’s largest collaborative orthopaedic research project that aims to develop future strategies for knees, hip and spinal surgery. Anja Behringer reports
Xenon anaesthesia not only preserves the heart and circulation but also prevents post-operative delirium. The high cost of the gas is made up for by a shorter length of sta. Report: Holger Zorn
Having secured significant contracts with hospitals in Sweden and the Netherlands, the UK-based mobile surgical services firm Vanguard Healthcare aims for further expansion in Europe. Mark Nicholls reports
When Professor PD Dr Dr Marcos Tatagiba operates the recently installed five ton, ceiling mounted MRI scanner in the operating theatre at the Neurosurgery Clinic in University Hospital Tubingen, he will be using systems technology currently unique in Europe.
There is a large variation in unplanned reoperation rates after colorectal surgery in English NHS hospitals, finds a study published on bmj.com today. As such, researchers suggest that reoperation rates could be used alongside other quality measures to help improve surgical performance on a national scale.
Given the increase in overweight or obese populations (estimated at around 50% in Europe alone), hospital equipment that supports patients must be tried, tested and proved to be robust indeed. Like many hospital equipment manufacturers, the Tuttlingen-based firm Berchtold is well aware of this growing concern, already providing components and accessories for obesity surgery.
Bypass surgery figures declined again in 2010. Reason: Most coronary heart disease (CHD) patients are being treated by removal of the obstruction followed by stent implantation -- a situation criticised by Professor Jochen Cremer, first Vice President of the DGTHG (German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery).
Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, a global leader in the science of heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring, announced that interim data from a multi-center European prospective study of the investigational EDWARDS INTUITY Valve System showed promising results for patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR).
Major disasters and natural catastrophes occur all the time – but in most cases we are only aware of them as images in the news on our TV screens or in the newspapers. Fortunately, most European hospitals are confronted with such major events only occasionally.
The 12th EFORT Congress, celebrating the 20th year of the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, aims to update knowledge of any specialty or subspecialty involving the diagnosis and management of bone and joint problems. The event will draw experts from over 30 European countries, and also benefit from specific contributions from Nordic countries.
Innovative mobile C-arm solutions by Nuremberg-based Ziehm Imaging are quickly conquering interventional radiology. At this year‘s European Congress of Radiology in Vienna, Martin Herzmann, Director of Global Marketing at Ziehm Imaging, met with EH correspondent Karoline Laarmann to discuss developments.
State-of-the-art operating theatres are shifting from X-rays to the display of images on monitors. The variety of different picture sources is also increasing, ranging from boom and endoscopy cameras to C-arms or PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication) systems. Thus the trend is to use an image management system to display the various surgical images on just one monitor.
Mechanical suturing tools are an indispensable part of modern surgery. Gastro-intestinal surgery as well as minimally invasive surgeries, would be unthinkable without this technology, a growing sub-market in an ever-growing industry, possibly driven by the patient’s benefit, writes Holger Zorn.
Cornelis Van De Velde, Professor of Surgical Oncology at the Leiden University Medical Centre, in the Netherlands, and President of the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO), describes the work and aims of the society within the EU.
Smooth, flawlessly running reprocessing systems ensure regulatory hygiene standards as well as the constant availability of all endoscopes. To this end, along with the established Partnership and Complete Coverage Contracts for endoscopy, Olympus Deutschland GmbH has developed CDS Care and CDS Care+ Contracts and a Validation Service.
In technical terms ‘hybrid’ is a system that connects two technologies so they may benefit from each other. This also applies to the newest generation of operating theatre*: hybrid OTs combine diagnostic and surgical facilities that are usually found in separate locations. Thus procedures can be carried out in less time and involve less discomfort and risk for the patient.