The reduction in junior doctors’ hours to 48 hours a week with the introduction of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) has increased the number of work shifts and continuity of care is suffering as patients are ‘handed over’ again and again to different doctors, according to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP).
A change in political control naturally creates change in the way things are run, and the jaw-jutting ‘Get tough’ nature of the UK’s new coalition Government is palpable. For hospitals, one early change relates to data reporting on MRSA bloodstream infections and C. Difficile. Up to now, these were published monthly by the National Health Service (NHS) Trust; soon they will be published…
The first major survey of European Multiple Sclerosis (MS) nurses revealed that nearly one in three nurses (31%) reported that standards of MS care are not adequately maintained in their country. The results of this survey will be presented for the first time on Friday 28 May, via a live webcast at the European MS Platform (EMSP) Annual Congress in Stuttgart, Germany.
Recent reports on cancer risk from radiation at CT have sparked new concern and discussion in the medical community as well as in the general public. It has been suggested that CT may be responsible for up to 2% of all cancers.
An international study, conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has shown that some countries are over-exposing children to radiation when performing computed tomography (CT) scans. These children are receiving adult-sized radiation doses, although experts have warned against the practice for over a decade.
"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…
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…
Welcoming the government's White Paper on social care reform, Dr Anna Dixon, acting chief executive of The King's Fund, said: 'The government has set out a bold and ambitious plan for reform which, if realised would establish a National Care Service free at the point of need. Defining a national entitlement would mean that people receive help based on their needs, not their postcode - a major…
Employers of the UK's 660,000 registered nurses and midwives are being given a new tool to support them in carrying out their responsibility of ensuring the health and wellbeing of the public
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has joined forces with almost 40 of the UK's leading health organisations to warn that cutting specialist nurse services for people with long term conditions would be a "false economy", as they began a campaign for guaranteed access to specialist nursing care for all patients with long term conditions.
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 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…
Innovate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a conceptual and operational development. It is comprehensive, modern and multifaceted, to understand the risks and find solutions for indoor air. It goes beyond the sick building concept to define healthy environments and beyond the idea of indoor air being the only contaminant source.
The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma's industry's influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry.
The German Medical Association aims to evaluate the use of guidelines, the influence of drug companies on studies, the impact of economisation on staff and patients, and ultimately to assess the realities of medical care.
According to estimates up to 450 million patients will suffer from diabetes in the year 2025 (currently 250 million). In view of this, glucose monitoring is of utmost importance. Scientific studies and practical experiences with glucose monitoring at the point of care (POC) were evaluated recently during a meeting of experts in Vienna.
The Alliance for MRI aims to ensure that the threat posed by the EU Physical Agents 2004/40/EC (EMF) to the future of MR is averted and that patients in Europe will not be precluded from state-of-the-art healthcare services. In early 2010 the European Parliament and Council will be sent a proposal from the European Commission to amend Directive 2004/40/EC on electromagnetic fields. This revision…
The closing event of the two-year Value+ project called for enhanced political commitment on patient involvement both at policy and project level. Meaningful involvement of patients enhances project results so that the project’s learnings can contribute more effectively to patient-centred, equitable healthcare throughout the EU.
A large proportion of patients who undergo abdominal/pelvic computed tomography (CT) receive unindicated and unnecessary additional image acquisition resulting in excess, avoidable radiation exposure, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
The Tenth Annual European interoperability testing event, known as the IHE Connectathon, will be held in Bordeaux, France from April 12th to 16th, 2010 at the Cité Mondiale, a conference center located in the heart of the city on the banks of the Garonne river.
What is good for the body may not be good for the mind. In an effort to repair heart damage with bypass surgery patients may experience unintended cerebral damage, including neuroligical impairment or even stroke.
Dell announced a Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) solution that addresses the unique challenges of hospitals when balancing the need to make patient information available to medical staff at the point of care and securing the information in the data centre to promote compliance with stricter compliance and patient data confidentiality regulations.
In the operating room, a surgeon typically is surrounded by 11 different medical devices, « and they all keep beeping at us, » complains Dr. Martin Schuster at Charité University Hospital in Berlin. «Which one of these alarms is important, » he asks, adding that blood pressure, oxygen saturation and ventillator alerts can sound between 10 and 12 times during each case.
Today testing of patients at the point of care (POC) accounts for 25% of all testing, and these portable assays are increasing their penetration into medical practice at rapid rate of 12% each year. Yet along with the growth comes an increasing risk of errors that adversely affect quality of clinical decision-making and patient safety.
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:…