In a small study of opioid prescriptions filled at a Johns Hopkins Medicine outpatient pharmacy, researchers found that handwritten orders for the drugs contribute heavily to a trio of prescribing and processing errors in contrast to those created electronically.
Konica Minolta, leading company in the medical imaging market, introduces its Premium Portable Ultrasound solution, Sonimage HS1.
In today’s digitised world, hospitals are already embracing the benefits which technology brings to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Against a backdrop of stretched resources and operational scrutiny hospital managers are able to address the needs of multiple stakeholders through hospital-wide digitalisation.
The hybrid operating room is one of the most innovative developments in the surgical sector. The combination of interventional and minimally invasive surgical procedures is exciting for many clinical disciplines. The room design, intraoperative imaging techniques as well as interdisciplinary collaboration play a pivotal role in this.
The MALDI Tissuetyper is a system that records spatially resolved mass spectra directly from tissue. This allows the direct measurement of proteins, lipids and other molecular classes without the need for antibodies or molecular probes. This results in highly multiplexed datasets in which hundreds or thousands of compounds are measured simultaneously.
Cost constraints, higher workloads, and a shortage of qualified staff are three distinct market trends driving demand for greater efficiency in the laboratory. The goals of automation are to make workflow more efficient, improve the turnaround time and predictability, and reduce errors - all while accommodating future growth. Automation also frees up staff for other activities. Report: Franz Walt
A fully automated clinical microbiology laboratory system went into service at Heidelberg University Hospital this April. Produced by medical technology firm BD Life Science, this first installation at a German university hospital will play a major role in a study exploring the potential benefits of lab automation in containing the spread of pathogens in a hospital.
Laboratories are an essential part of effective modern healthcare. They provide clinicians with vital information that helps them make life-saving decisions, diagnose conditions and monitor patient treatment.
The massive earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 killed more than 9,000 people and injured more than 23,000. Within days, medical teams from other countries had offered services to the disaster relief effort.
The Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, has installed a Siemens Healthcare Magnetom Aera 1.5-Tesla system incorporating special features to help relax younger patients. Within months of the installation of the wide bore machine, which has comfort enhancing features, there has been a significant fall in the number of patients aged 4-17 requiring general anaesthetic ahead of undergoing an…
New, screen-printed, flexible MRI coils may be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to get an MRI scan. Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have developed light and flexible MRI coils that produce high quality MRI images and in the future could lead to shorter MRI scan time periods.
‘Humber River Hospital, Toronto, Canada, could come straight out of a science fiction series that provides Star Trek-like healthcare services with hall-cruising robots delivering food, medications and supplies to staff, electrochromic windows, video conference capabilities at patients’ bedsides and real-time location systems, to name but a few futuristic features. Yet, this is now and for…
Healthcare is going digital. No doubt about it, Prof. Hufnagl predicts. Information and communication technologies have gone beyond moving data from one place to the other; they are triggering stellar improvements in healthcare: diagnoses are becoming ever more precise, therapies ever more personalised. The extent to which the individual clinical disciplines have progressed in their technological…
As laboratories in Europe shift to systems for digital pathology, they must ensure the technology not only works, but works for them, says Dr Liron Pantanowitz, director of pathology informatics at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
A UK-based neuropathologist has highlighted how the digitisation of pathology will play a pivotal role in taking patient care on to a new and more efficient level. Speaking in a recent Webinar under the heading The Adoption and Benefits of Digital Pathology for Primary Diagnosis, Dr Daniel du Plessis also noted how the digital era would raise the profile of pathology and ‘bring it out of the…
Pathologists in Utrecht step away from the microscope as the first fully digital workflow goes live for primary diagnostics. ‘The whole world wants to stop by and see the show,’ said Paul van Diest MD, who leads the Department of Pathology at the Utrecht University Medical Centre.
In spectral imaging, x-ray images are formed in the customary grey scale imaging procedure. However different photon energies are used, generating images in different colors. Aside from the acquisition of anatomical information, this measurement makes it possible to show different tissue compositions.
Fujifilm Sonosite announced CE mark and 510(k) clearance for its new mountable ultrasound system, the SonoSite SII. Developed for regional anesthesia, vascular access and trauma applications, the SII empowers efficiency for clinicians through a simple, yet smart user interface that adapts to the user’s imaging needs. The system is portable and can be used across multiple hospital environments,…
Not all innovations marketed as ‘world premieres’ actually make a significant impact on the world. However, the new robotic X-ray system ‘Multitom Rax’ (Robotic Advanced X-ray) introduced by Siemens Healthcare and the University Hospital Erlangen is one innovation in the world of medicine technology that deserves this label, the manufacturer reports. ‘With the combination of robotic and…
A higher nurse to patient ratio is linked to a reduced risk of inpatient death, finds a study of staffing levels in NHS hospitals, published in the online journal BMJ Open.
The joint practice of Drs. Ulrike and Dieter von der Burg in Münster, Germany, decided on the GU60 digital X-ray system by Samsung Health Medical Equipment (HME) and is very pleased with the image quality and workflow. The strong Samsung support and comprehensive expanded training program which allows the exploitation of the full potential was also a factor in choosing Samsung HME.
At Agfa HealthCare, we have long recognized the need for a balance between high image quality and the management of dose. With the cesium phosphor technology enhanced and empowered by the gold standard MUSICA image processing software, renowned for delivering diagnostic value images and making it easy to see details, radiologists are potentially able to provide a dose reduction of 50% to 60%*.…
First they fixed the cables to hard-wire a faster data transfer from laboratory instruments. Now a coalition of the largest manufacturers of lab equipment for patient diagnostic tests have agreed on shared protocols for how software should report results. This is the first update to international standards in 20 years.
Wallace Coulter, one of the founders of Beckman Coulter, was motivated by a belief that science should serve humanity. This was the inspiration behind the principle he invented that became the basis for all blood counting solutions. This same drive to keep the science of hematology moving forward is behind Beckman Coulter's new ©Automated Intelligent Morphology© (AIM), a multidimensional,…
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