Visiting European healthcare professionals will be able to enter a strong debate on hospital-related politics as well as medical and economic issues at MEDICA this year when the 1st European Hospital Conference (EHC) will take place at 18th November alongside the 34th Congress of German Hospitals.
A mix of hardware, software and services, the Hitachi Clinical Repository (HCR) system draws together all patient data from many information sources, thus providing quicker and better use of records. At Hitachi Data Systems, Mark Clark explained: ‘HCR basically provides the infrastructure to put together both clinical and non-clinical data into a centralised, non-proprietary-repository to…
Preliminary results from a large, ongoing study involving medical staff in 11 hospitals in six European countries indicate that Dell’s Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) system has made the use of applications easier for doctors and nurses, significantly increased efficiency in IT management and raised IT acceptance in the hospitals involved.
The Swiss-based World Medical Centre Holding SA and German Centre for Travel Ltd. medicine have launched, an international personal medical record system -- the CRM travel.CARD – for travellers to keep their essential medical data with them at all times. Representatives of the two firms, both specialised in travel medicine, presented the CRM travel.CARD at a press conference this January in…
For 170 years, the German firm seca has set worldwide standards for medical scales and measuring stations. Today, its products are used by medical teams in 110 countries, measuring a range of patients from tiny premature babies to adults weighing 300kg and basket ball players soaring to 7’ 4” high.
While other industries race towards an all-digital world, healthcare remains frozen in the Analogue Age. However, the success of established, world-leading e-health programmes in Denmark, Andalusia and Lombardy, have built confidence in secure patient data exchanges.
When the European Parliament voted in favour of the EU Directive on Patients’ Rights in Cross-border Healthcare, Health Commissioner John Dalli, explained that this is an important step forward for all EU patients – i.e. by gaining easier access to good quality and reimbursed treatment across EU borders. Meanwhile, Europe’s healthcare systems will need to deliver ‘more for less’.
The European Parliament has voted today in favour of the EU Cross-border Healthcare Directive. Eucomed, the European medical technology industry association, welcomes the adoption of this Directive which creates, amongst others, a legal basis for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) cooperation between member states. The association is especially looking forward to actively participating in the…
With over 6,000 employees serving over 50 different departments, the 1,062-bed university hospital UZ Gent is Belgium’s largest single hospital campus. Managing all the imaging data from such a huge institution – as well as establishing a network with about 30 partner hospitals and other caregivers – suggests a quite tricky task. Tricky, but not impossible, as Professor Bart Sijnave, Chief…
Held every three years, a very important healthcare IT event is to be held in Europe after a gap of 14 years. From November 15-19, healthcare managers and suppliers from 37 countries will arrive in Milan to discuss the future of world’s electronic health services at the 16th Congress of IFHRO (International Federation of Health Records Organisations), held in collaboration with the WHO.
Approx. 250 delegates from more than 30 countries followed the invitation to the inaugural Global E-Health Forum on October 25 + 26, 2010 in Hamburg. In presentations, workshops and discussion forums, the attendees learned about e-health strategies, solutions and services from all over the world.
Given that European countries have very diverse healthcare systems with special types of hospitals and even special information systems, comparison of healthcare systems and hospital performances is difficult. Thus, the first HIMSS Europe Leadership IT Summit, which took place in Rome, has provided a platform from which to discuss quality patient care based on IT and particularly the…
The aim of the predictive modelling systems being trialled in the UK are to identify which people in a given population are the most likely to be admitted to hospital in the next 12 months and then focus preventive measures on them to try to avoid hospital admission. Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), which commission hospital services in the UK, are favouring the model as they try to cut costs during a…
The well established, universal health care structures of EU countries with most specialty practices located within hospitals has led to a more advanced electronic patient record environment. Globally, 2/3 of Health Care Professionals have already implemented Electronic Patient Record systems but the US lags with less than half.
Given the task of archiving today’s huge data files, not to mention additional services demanded of hospital IT staff, cloud computing could reduce many headaches. Via a healthcare IT supplier that offers cloud computing, a hospital would be able to use, over the Web, virtual hardware that provides higher levels of storage capacity and computing resources.
The Health Informatics Congress held in the UK this April, revealed how IT is helping health Trusts across the UK to take innovative steps in the way they respond to patients’ needs. The Clinical Showcase session examined how Trusts are coping with new patient administration and reporting systems and, in particular, how Cerner Millennium and Lorenzo systems are being implemented.
The hosting service has been selected, software standards have been published, and on 11 December 2010 any French citizen will be able to open a file and begin creating a secure, personal electronic health record (EHR). If the agency charged with this ambitious programme meets the deadline, France will suddenly jump to the leading edge of e-health worldwide, rivalling advanced national programmes…
The introduction of electronic patient records (EPRs) can ‘dramatically’ speed up the Chlamydia treatment cycle, more than doubling the number of people treated within two weeks of a test result, according to research led by Dr Gary Brook at the Patrick Clements Clinic, Central Middlesex Hospital, London, and published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
In 2011 more than 30,000 hospital caregivers in 10 European countries will participate in an exchange of electronic patients’ records (EPRs) in the world's largest, first-ever cross-border connection of e-health systems. Brussels refers to this as a ‘large-scale e-health implementation’, and while it is easy to laugh about the bureaucratic language, it was the careful, go-slow approach of…
Seven hospitals in the Tyrol region are now online with an IHE cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) network centred at Insnsburch University Hospital. About 4,000 patient discharge letters are exchanged daily and 4,000 queries managed.
Like many others, Austria is in the process of introducing electronic patients’ records (EPRs) for use in and by all healthcare facilities. After a drawn out preparation phase, a company was founded to implement the project and ELGA (Elektronische Gesundheitsakte) is underway. ‘E-health will come, step by step, but inexorably’, said Austrian Health Minister Alois Stöger.
Dr Nicola H Strickland BM BCh, MA Hons (Oxon) FRCP, FRCR, Consultant Radiologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Department of Imaging, Hammersmith Hospital, London, trained in natural science and medicine at the University of Oxford, and in radiology at Hammersmith Hospital, London. Now a staff member at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, she has been…
The equation is simple: Hospital IT data is growing exponentially, hospital funds are not. Facing enormous data volumes and less chance of increasing equipment or staff, IT managers inevitably suffer headaches. ‘Cloud is really IT being delivered as a service over the Internet,’ Mark Clark explained.
The World of Health IT Conference & Exhibition (WoHIT) 2010 will for the first time be held in conjunction with the European Union’s annual High Level eHealth Conference and is being organised by the European Commission, HIMSS Europe, the Spanish Ministry of Health and Social Policy, the Regional Government of Catalonia and Foundation TicSalut.
Entrepreneur Dr Gunter Pollanz was a central figure in the build-up of charter flights to Israel and in the foundation of MAOF Airlines in Tel Aviv. Later, he also developed important export structures from Israel to Europe. However, in 1997 his life took a dramatic turn when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Prognosis: Although 54 years old he faced just three more months of life. Today, Dr…
