Keeping up with innovations and standards
The 3rd Central European Congress of Surgery (CECS), held alongside the 5th Croatian Congress of Surgery, drew over 300 participants to Dubrovnik at the end of April – 43 more than the previous gathering.
The Surgical Planning Unit
Surgical planning is complex. Today’s surgeons can utilise information from various sources – including CT and MRI images, as well as f-MRI, PET or electro-physiological signals. For minimally invasive surgery (MIS) these additional imaging data are of particular importance, in that they enable precise navigation within the body.
Peripheral nerve surgery
Neurosurgery has seen enormous progress, which should benefit as many patients as possible. However, according to Prof. Hanno Millesi MD, director of the Millesi Centre for Surgery of Peripheral Nerves, Wiener PrivatKlinik (WPK), a private hospital in Vienna, Austria, ‘methods are perceived incorrectly, because they are often confused with problematic predecessors, and sensible methods are…
Success for tele-stroke service
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.
Choosing and using a PACS
With four hospitals, each with its own radiology department, and the central Institute of Radiology located at Höxter the Catholic Hospital Association (KHWE) Weser-Egge, Germany, needed communication improvements.
AQi 4.4.5 software with iPad support
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.
Hybrid operating theatres
Basically, a hybrid operating theatre (OT) is a combined operating room containing large imaging equipment, such as MRT and CT, which enables intra-operative diagnostics. If provided for in the hygiene and theatre concept, the hybrid OT can also be used purely as a diagnostics room, or as a classic operating room.
The UK’s Vanguard is going global
Last January Dr Maurizio Pupi became the International Business Manager of Vanguard Healthcare – the UK supplier of mobile healthcare facilities – which intends to spread its already very established and necessary services beyond the United Kingdom.
ESR: "Teleradiology is a medical act"
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…
Drug patents expiry will save healthcare billions
European healthcare providers could benefit from savings of over €3.8 billion a year by 2014 as patents expire on leading pharmaceutical products and the market opens up to generics competition, according to latest research from independent market analyst Datamonitor (www.datamonitor.com).
Boldly tackling catering and hygiene issues
Although food for in-patients can be integral to healing, the standard of catering can be disappointingly low in some hospitals. In addition, sometimes even the help needed by those patients unable to eat or drink unaided can be overlooked. In addition, the problems of poor hospital hygiene can, at worst, result in deaths as well as legal issues for management. These two difficult areas are now…
Journey to the stomach
The journey into the self becomes reality: Siemens Healthcare and Olympus Medical Systems Corporation announce collaborative development of advanced magnetically guided capsule endoscope system for intragastric observation Siemens Healthcare and Olympus Medical Systems Corporation are collaborating on the development of a technology for a magnetically guided capsule endoscope (MGCE) system.
New children's medicine guide released by UNICEF and WHO
An estimated 9 million children die each year from preventable and treatable causes. A new publication that lists medicines formulated for children is being made available now online by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, to help doctors and organizations obtain some of the 240 essential medicines that can save the lives of children.
Causes of death in AIDS patients
New research from the University of Bristol and a large group of international collaborators shows that Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) continues to dramatically reduce rates of mortality from HIV infection in high-income countries, such that non-AIDS-related deaths exceed AIDS deaths after approximately four years of taking ART.
The future of robotics
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.
Secret to Healing chronic wounds might lie in tiny pieces of silent RNA
Scientists have determined that chronic wounds might have trouble healing because of the actions of a tiny piece of a molecular structure in cells known as RNA. The Ohio State University researchers discovered in a new animal study that this RNA segment in wounds with limited blood flow lowers the production of a protein that is needed to encourage skin cells to grow and close over the sore.
Radiology and Management
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.
Radiology and Staff Managment
"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.
IT and Workflow
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…
New cancer therapy to fight cardiovascular diseases?
New drugs that are helping fight a multi-front war on cancer may do the same for cardiovascular disease, Medical College of Georgia researchers said. Cancer and cardiovascular disease, both among top U.S. killers, share inflammation as a cause. Heat shock protein 90 inhibitors as a treatment could become additional common ground, said Dr. John Catravas, director of MCG's Vascular Biology Center.
White paper on social care system is welcome but leaves many grey areas
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…
NHS needs to invest in increasing specialists´nurses
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.
Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe
From 1 April 2010, the Olympus Group will be pooling its expertise in the field of minimally invasive diagnostics and therapy under a common “Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe” umbrella. To this end, Olympus Winter & Ibe GmbH, Celon AG and Olympus Medical Products Czech SPOL. S.R.O. will be joining forces to accomplish a shared presence under a new, single brand.
HMS - PACS installations in a networked environment
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…
There is always urgency in pediatric radiology
Children will surprise you, and unfortunately they can sometimes hold big surprises for radiologists. At ECR 2010 four radiologists offered a series of pediatric cases in a session entitled, « Pediatric non-traumatic emergencies: What we must know!, » which covered children from head to toe, demonstrating that symptoms thought to be routine can mask more serious conditions
