NHS managers are refuting a report that ranks the UK 13th for healthcare out of 31 European countries. The Euro Health Consumer Index 2008 puts the Netherlands in first place, with the UK trailing behind countries including Estonia, France and Germany.
Most professionals will recognise issues that call for consideration in a wider context, a context that does not merely consider strictly professional issues, i.e. issues based upon facts and figures, write Johannes Gossner MD and Joerg Larsen MD FRCR, of the Institute for Roentgendiagnostics, Braunschweig Teaching Hospitals, Germany.
The creation of standardised cross-enterprise healthcare records in Germany will be increasingly promoted in numerous national initiatives and projects spanning several manufacturers, e.g. by the eFA initiative for the electronic case file headed by the Fraunhofer Institut ISST. By Jens-Uwe Thieme, Business Line Manager HIS & ERP Systems, iSoft Health GmbH
Increasing populations and the additional storage requirements for a spiralling volume of their medical data cause acknowledged concerns among healthcare organisations.
This two-day event, held in Notwil, Switzerland, in September, hosted over 1,600 participants and 80 exhibitors, and attracted about 100 more visitors than in 2007.
In September 2006, Dr Albrecht Bornscheuer (right) changed roles within the Hannover Medical School (MHH): the anaesthetist became a manager responsible for the coordination and capacity utilisation of the school's 41 operating theatres.
Presidential candidates use them to persuade voters, drug companies use them to sell their products, and the media spin them in all kinds of ways, but nobody - candidates, reporters, let alone health consumers - understands them.
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) and the Australasian Association of Clinical Biochemists (AACB) are joining together for the second time for a conference on major changes facing laboratorians in coming years, under the banner Laboratory Medicine - Into the Future.
By Hans Peter Hartl, member of the Nursing Directorate at the Department of Gerontopsychiatry, Mainkofen District Hospital, Germany.
The safety of medical products, which includes bedding, depends on three pillars: identification of mistakes, updating standards and training.
It is safe to take anticoagulants before core needle breast biopsies, according to a study performed at the Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic in Rochester, NY.
Philips and Steris join forces to provide hybrid surgical rooms: a flexible environment for optimal imaging during open and minimally invasive cardiovasculare procedures that will optimise workflow and streamline room planning.
Tumour ablation - and Radiofrequency (RF) ablation in particular - is getting more and more important in oncology. The therapy option offers benefits in terms of costs, ease of set-up and flexibility so that experts see the need to expand the applications of it.
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.
Last week, the Commissioner for Health, Androulla Vassiliou launched the 'Europe for Patients' campaign in Brussels. The campaign highlights the different health policy initiatives the Commission intends to adopt in the coming months. All these initiatives are bound by a common goal: better healthcare for all in Europe.
Health systems and health policies across the EU are becoming ever more interconnected which raises many health policy issues. On 2 July 2008, in the context of the Renewed Social Agenda, the European Commission tabled a proposal for a directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare. Essential precondition for cross-border healthcare is the existence of electronic health record systems…
The World of Health IT 2008 Conference & Exhibition is an innovative and forward-thinking event designed to deepen the understanding of specific healthcare ICT markets in Europe.
Catheter ablation is still associated with a substantial amount of complications, and more failure then sometimes reported. Perforation with catheters is especially important in atrial fibrillation. Robotic navigation could reduce these complications.
Since Rofecoxib (Vioxx) was withdrawn from the worldwide market based on the safety findings of the Adenomatous Polyp Prevention on Vioxx (APPROVe) study, the uncertainty around the cardiovascular safety of NSAIDs and COX-2 inhibitors remains and leaves practitioners with difficult management decisions for the hundreds of millions of patients worldwide who continue to require pain-relieving…
Last October the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) added a black box warning on ultrasound (US) contrast agents used in echocardiogram imaging examinations, around 200 reports of serious allergic reactions were received. Problems included cardiac arrest as well as breathing difficulty and seizures; seven of the cases resulted in death.
The belief that iodinated contrast agents can induce nephropathy has been held for many years, even though most of the clinical literature has not been able to distinguish contrast-induced nephropathy from other causes of the condition.
The drug information system AiDKlinik developed by Dosing GmbH is a software solution for the server-based intranet for medication dosing.
The Dutch E-health initiatives have made remarkable progress in recent years, writes Marcel Swennenhuis, President of Topicus HealthCare. Many solutions, such as online medication services, patient portals and web-based disease management initiatives, demonstrate the success of the country's EHR approach.
The world's first installation of Cisco's telemetry system HealthPresence has been completed at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland. The system combines video, audio and call centre technology with medical information in a high-security network.
Information in patients' records could benefit biomedical research in terms of understanding diseases and their treatments. The drawback is that those records contain confidential information that could identify patients. If that data has to be removed manually, the task is not only painstaking and therefore expensive, but also not foolproof.
