The application of ergonomic principles can enhance product design and, more importantly, the usability of medical devices. Ideally the operation of the product is adaptable to the individual user’s preferences and to different workflows, for example when safe handling is ensured in routine as well as in emergency situations.
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.
As one of the most advanced forms of precision radiotherapy, proton therapy enables the irradiation of tumours located deep within the body, in the proximity of critical organs, such as the optic nerve or some brain areas. The Institut Curie has renovated its proton therapy centre in Orsay near Paris. Since 1991, when the original centre opened, it has treated over 5,000 patients (4,000 for eye…
People are confronted daily with finding their way in new buildings and building complexes. Generally these are intricate, have numerous sections distributed among different houses and/or floors. Whether in hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, airports, or other large building complexes, finding the way to a particular destination can be an extremely difficult or even an impossible undertaking.
This March, Dräger Medical will bring to the bedside of respiratory patients an innovative new monitor that vividly shows, breath-by-breath, their response to treatment. After shifting a patient’s position, or adjusting the respirator setting, or delivering a drug to open airways, physicians and nurses will be able to watch in real-time the response inside the patient’s lungs.
Molecular imaging (MI) is reported as an increasingly important diagnostic field for radiologists to focus on. However, molecular imaging should not be considered a new discipline that only adds to today’s clinical practice, or might even replace the traditional, more morphology-oriented diagnosis. Rather, the whole diagnostic concept should be re-considered.
Innovation in imaging in the last decades was mainly driven by new imaging modalities, better image quality and improved workflow tools to enhance diagnostic quality and confidence. As a global vendor we face future turf battles with new market entries, especially from Asia. To win those competitive battles we are broadening our innovation focus to serve the changing needs of radiologists.
A leading radiologist is forecasting a ‘paradigm shift’ in breast imaging. Dr Peter Brader, from Department of Radiology, Division for Molecular and Gender Imaging, Medical University Vienna, envisages that diagnosis and treatment will move from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to one of personalised molecular medicine by 2025. He also foresees greater use of theranostics with combinations…
Whole-body hybrid PET-MR scanners are emerging on the market and are expected to have a significant impact in diagnostic imaging particularly in oncology applications and also in other clinical domains, such as cardiology, inflammatory and infectious disease, as well as in neurological applications.
The closure of Pfizer’s Sandwich Lab is part of a long-term decline in drug development, a trend that has been affecting all major UK pharmaceutical multinationals. Big pharmaceutical companies have been downsizing, outsourcing and merging in an attempts to find an innovation strategy that will keep their pipelines filled with new, potentially profitable products.
Royal Philips Electronics and bioMérieux today announced that they have successfully achieved an important milestone in the development of fully-automated handheld rapid diagnostic test solutions for use in hospitals at the point-of-care – i.e. close to a patient’s bedside. This milestone comprises the successful integration of bioMérieux’s assay technology and Philips’ Magnotech rapid…
Breast cancer screening programmes are helping to reduce the mortality rates of women by finding cancer in its early stages when it is easier to treat. Sweden was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a screening program after succesful clinical trials in the 1980s. However x-ray radiation is also a risk factor for inducing breast cancer, meaning that a low radiation dose is…
Royal Philips Electronics is announcing CE marking for the industry’s first commercially available whole body PET/MR imaging system, the Ingenuity TF PET/MR*. This new system, being launched as the first new Philips modality in ten years, integrates the molecular imaging capabilities of PET with the superior soft tissue contrast of MR to image disease cells as they proliferate in soft tissue.…
Who has not dreamed at least once to live in future times? Who would not want that one’s today incurable diseases may be cured in the future by medical progress? Long-time cryopreservation immediately after death is the betting ticket to that future.
Endoscopy has advanced dramatically in the past decade with innovative technologies introduced by industry and novel procedures pioneered by physicians. Given a choice among the broad range of new tools, endoscopic surgeons simply want it all -- and are asking for more. During the Medica 2010 Congress, the Innovations in Endoscopy session rang with the word ‘combinations’.
Focused exclusively on the rapidly growing field of laboratory automation, Lab Automation 2011will discuss and demonstrate the latest scientific and technological advances in this field. Presented by the Laboratory Automation Section (LAS) of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), the event is expected to attract more than 4,000 scientists, academics and business leaders.
Necessity is the mother of invention, an old saying but particularly true in interventional radiology. Whenever minimally invasive procedures need monitoring from different angles and by different modalities, physicians and technicians in angio labs muster all their DIY skills and build huge monitor towers often with eight screens. Now, however, the new Large Display jointly developed by Siemens…
November saw the opening of the private Avicenna Clinic in Berlin, a clinical "gem" set in the heart of Berlin, not far from the famous Kurfürstendamm. This spinal hospital is also the first in Europe to have installed the AIRIS Vento LT, Hitachi Medical Systems’ latest generation of open MRI systems in its AIRIS Series.
In November, European diabetologists converged on Leverkusen, Germany, to discuss current practices in diabetic management of Type 1 and Type 2 in adults, as well as new technologies, procedures and the need for patients’ education.
The world consists of molecules – so do we. With the progression of measurement tools such as microscopes, centrifuges, or spectrometers, mankind is becoming better and better in identifying the substances from which our world is made. Today, with the technical developments in mass spectrometry, biomolecules can be weighted with the highest precision and accuracy ever known, placing it among…
It started with a bright new idea: full colour ultrasound delivered in a portable scanner. Each year since this first product launch, Sonoscape has continued to introduce new ultrasound systems, expanding its product line and growing sales by double digits. Can this relative newcomer in European ultrasound continue to report such strong performance?
While Contec’s broad range covers 13 product categories, the accent over the past year has been on enhancing patient-centred devices with fresh features developed by the firm’s research & development team. For example, while the typical screen size for patient monitors is 12-inches, Contec recently introduce models that both increase and reduce that size in response to customer demand.
The suggestion that a Chinese company will emerge in the future as the dominant provider of ultrasound systems in Europe made Landwind Managing Vice President Wang Guozhong smile before he then confirmed: ‘I’m confident that, with our strengths in research and development and the importance we place on customer service, Landwind can make this happen even sooner.’
At Medica 2009, Julie Shimer, CEO of Welch Allyn, described her company’s future plans in an interview with European Hospital. Medica 2010 brought us another opportunity to meet, this time to hear how those aims were achieved in the past year.
According to Medica organisers, November’s medical diary highlight was again a success: around 137,200 visitors from 100 countries entered the massive and many halls of Messe Düsseldorf to scour the world’s largest medical fair. From the world of politics came German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German and Healthcare Minister Philipp Rösler, as well as the Right Honorable The Lord Darzi of…