A telemedicine project is being used in rural areas of eastern England to enable stroke patients to receive clot-busting drugs within a critical three-hour time window. Adapting video-conferencing facilities, a telestroke service has enabled patients to receive a diagnosis from a stroke specialist, who can authorise thrombolytic drugs to be administered to those deemed eligible.
Physicians connected with the Friesland Regional Cardiology Network can now consult in real- time with specialists at the regional medical centre to determine the best course of treatment for their patients. The cardiology network not only speeds up the referral process and improves both diagnosis and the clinical decision process, but also is credited with reducing the length of stay for…
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…
A telemedicine network project currently being implemented in the Leipzig region has won Australian IT firm iSOFT the top award in the 5th Ideenpark Gesundheitswirtschaft (Idea-park Healthcare) competition, presented by the Financial Times Deutschland at its annual FTD-Health Conference in Berlin. The awards are given for projects that contribute to greater transparency, productivity and…
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.
A 4.4.5 version of the Aquarius iNtuition advanced visualisation server-based software suite, including support for the newly-released iPad, was launched in April by TeraRecon.
After years of promise, with no progress, e-health is gaining ground in Europe, where governments see the potential for cost reductions and productivity gains in telemedicine, regarding it as a magic formula to fix overstretched healthcare systems, and the European Commission (EC) is aggressively pushing tele-anything in healthcare to drive what it sees as a potential for job creation and…
The volcanic ash creating widespread no-fly zones had no significant impact on the success of conhIT, Germany’s largest healthcare IT event; for three days in April some 3,500 experts were there to discuss current trends in their field and visit the IT trade fair to assess new solutions and products. One topic central to this year’s event was the convergence of IT and medical technology,…
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.
At yesterday’s Meet the Expert session at the 25th Annual EAU Congress, Professor Jens Rassweiler, Chairman of the EAU Section of Uro-Technology, talked to journalists about the importance of robotics in future laparoscopic surgery.
Professor Jörg F. Debatin, MD MBA, Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) opened the session with his presentation “The role of radiology in the strategic planning of medical centres”. He discussed possibilities to effectively explore the hidden potential of diagnostic radiology services.
"Digital technology has come a long way: today, it is easy to produce thousands of radiological images – but who will read them?" Good question. In her presentation, Maria Lohm, MSc, Manager of RadiologiResurs AB, Unilabs AB, Sweden, provided an answer. Her company Unilabs offers teleradiology services as an excellent alternative in times of radiologist shortage.
In 2009, a handful of hospitals began to use Twitter to promote live surgeries. Broadcasts of surgical procedures using the Internet has proliferated with the almost universal availability of high-speed Internet, which makes streaming video possible. YouTube contains dozens of surgical procedures. There is even a website, www.ORlive.com, dedicated to live broadcasts and videos of surgeries…
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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.
Many years ago, five self-made millionaires were interviewed about their work. The last question posed was: ‘Is there one thing to which you could attribute your enormous success?’ Without hesitation, four answered: ‘Energy!’ The fifth quipped, ‘Luck’. By the law of averages energy is thus a vital ingredient. However, there are many other essential assets and luck is the least of them.
Considering the huge tasks and issues involved, the connection of health services, digitised EPRs, and text messaging via mobile phones, all are progressing -- some slowly, others at a more rapid pace – as many speakers at the e-Health Insider Conference underlined.
EU legislation could have a huge impact on medical imaging and healthcare, and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) is playing a key role in safeguarding radiologists and patients' interests. By closely monitoring EU affairs and establishing contacts with relevant institutions, as well as consulting and public affairs agencies, the ESR tries to draw the attention of relevant stakeholders and…
Don’t forget – Friday will be an important day for discussions on cross-border healthcare, travel medicine and growing liaisons with India, all subjects highlighted in special sessions at Medica Media.
When over 3,000 international experts gathered at the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Munich, Germany to evaluate future trends, they heard that Asia is showing major gains in medical engineering — a field in which computer sciences are a key innovation driver – but that Europe is on the way to innovation leadership in telemedicine and e-health.
Medical technology innovation, often viewed as a cost-driver can also be the key to cost-cutting in healthcare while at the same time improve the health outcome for patients. This was the core message of an experts' panel organised by the European Health Technology Institute for Socio-Economic Research (EHTI) at the European Health Forum Gastein.
Cardiology centres worldwide experience an almost exponential rise in the number of in-hospital follow-ups of patients with implantable devices or heart failure (HF).This not only strains the available personnel resources, it also means a rapidly increasing cost to healthcare payers, especially in fee-for-service reimbursement situations.
MultiSense Communications, a medical conferencing solutions provider based in High Wycombe, UK, in conjunction with medical imaging specialist Barco, recently demonstrated the clinical benefits of today's telemedicine systems. During a live open heart surgery operation at the Imperial College Hospital in Hammersmith, UK, an entire heart valve repair procedure was captured and transmitted to a…
As the modern enterprise seeks to focus ever more narrowly on its core activities, IT outsourcing services are increasingly being considered as a business strategy. The changing demands and trends in healthcare are forcing healthcare organisations to acknowledge the increasing role that outsourcing can play in improving effectiveness, competitiveness, and IT expertise as well as in reducing…