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EUROPEAN HOSPITAL Vol 23 Issue 5/14 NEWS & MANAGEMENT Structural and interdisciplinary improvement Healthcare stands to gain the most from RFID Interview: Brigitte Dinkloh With around 140,000 visitors annually, Medica is doubtless the showcase for medical manu facturers. However, although the world’s largest medical fair, the venue is not yet very well known for continuing medical educa- tion. This is set to change. With the re-orientation of the Medica Education Conference (MEC) during a collaboration with the German Society for Internal Medicine (DGIM), the organisers hope for a bigger response and an increased number of visitors. We asked Congress President Professor Hendrik Lehnert MD, Director of Medical Clinic One, at the University Hospital Schleswig- Holstein, Campus Lübeck, about his expectations and the educa- tion programme design. Explaining how the collaboration with Medica evolved and the impor- tance of the congress for the DGIM, Professor Lehnert said that Messe Düsseldorf sought a new partner for Euro ID 2014, the only global confer- ence covering all the technologies of automatic identification (AIDC), will provide an overview of technolo- gies used for identification purposes across a diverse set of industries, H Sprague Ackley explained, qualify- ing these as ‘technologies like bar- codes, biometrics − such as iris and facial recognition, RFID, RFID in connection with voice, smart cards, magnetic stripes, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and voice recog- nition will be on show.’ Are certain ID technologies better than others for healthcare? ‘Today, basically all common AIDC technologies are used in healthcare. The technologies work together. For identity purposes in a hospital, you can, for example, use a wristband with either a barcode or an RFID chip integrated. The decision as to which technology to employ is typically not taken out of a tech- nological rationale, but on busi- ness considerations. A cost-benefit calculation determines which tech- the Medica Education Conference and the DGIM submitted its tender. ‘It must have impressed the organis- ers because we were selected,’ he explained. ‘We are very pleased to be organising this conference because it gives us an opportunity to prove that we can organise another, large con- gress with a different aspiration and bigger target audience, alongside our own annual Internal Medicine Congress in Wiesbaden. ‘This is a very exciting opportu- nity and challenge to go beyond the bounds of internal medicine, to work in an even more interdisci- plinary manner than before and to design a programme encompassing many neighbouring disciplines, from surgery to radiology and pathology.’ Asked about the interest shown to date and the potential number of participants, the professor explained that the application procedure is continuing, so there is no popular- ity indication as yet. ‘We are hoping for more than 2,000 participants – a good start for us and significantly more participants than in previous years. In the long run we are aiming for between 8,000 and 10,000 par- ticipants,’ he added. nology to use; in most cases the answer is barcode. That’s why the healthcare world is full with bar- codes. However, there is a trade-off between price and level of security. Although barcodes work well, espe- How can that ambitious target be achieved? Prof. Lehnert pointed out that the high quality conference programme is structured in a com- pletely new way and the organisers have gathered outstanding national and international speakers. It is also backed by advertisements in the spe- cialist press and in daily newspapers. ‘Overall, the conference is definite- ly set to become more international. As yet the English language part of the programme is only about 10% of the total; however, in the future, the plan is to develop a successive tran- sition from German to English as the congress language. ‘To date, education has tended to be side-lined by the large fair; with 140,000 visitors the smaller training and education part has definitely been dwarfed by the exhibition.’ He expects change and that the MEC will become very successful. ‘There are four superordinate key topics, which have been laid out as broad and transdisciplinary as possible,’ Prof. Lehnert pointed out. For 2014 these are infection and inflammation, telemedicine and robotics, gastrointestinal oncology and interventional medicine, involv- cially for tracking specimens, they do not offer authenticity benefits and can be easily copied.’ What role does RFID play in healthcare? ing representatives from many other disciplines, such as surgeons and radiologists. ‘We have a very diverse pro- gramme committee who will also cover areas beyond the expertise of internal medicine. Gastrointestinal oncology is obviously a classic topic within internal medicine, but it is also complemented by surgery and radiology. The key topic interven- tional medicine strongly involves gynaecology as well as urology. We have obviously ensured that the expertise of the programme com- mittee members is taken into con- sideration. A clearly structured daily timeline with standardised parallel events provides all participants with a diversified, all-day scientific educa- tion in combination with a visit to the exhibition. In the first instance the programme is naturally aimed at doctors and interested company rep- resentatives, but there are also some programme points that will interest other medical professions.’ 10-15% of the programme will be practical seminars and hands- on courses to include, for exam- ple, ultrasound seminars, nutrition, endoscopy and diabetes. Although ‘RFID is used in various applications, from patient, document and file track- ing, medication authentication, man- agement of facilities, assets, inventory, laundry and access control – and not all uses have been invented yet. ‘An RFID system is based on the usage of radio waves, RFID tags and RFID readers. The tag, which has a unique identification number and an antenna to send and receive radio waves, can be attached to an hour a day has been set aside for industry symposia, so far there has not been much participation. ‘However, this is not decisive for the success of the congress,’ the profes- sor noted, adding that there will be industry symposia on laboratory medicine. ‘Many are probably wait- ing to see what the first MEC under our management will be like and then decide to participate next year. Our annual congress includes around forty industry symposia and I am ’sure this kind of participa- tion will develop for the Medica Ediucation Programm as well. Swedish-born Hendrik Lehnert, an internal medicine specialist with a focus on endocrinology, has directed Medical Clinic I at Campus Lübeck, Schleswig- Holstein University Hospital since 2007. After gaining psychology and medicine degrees, Lehnert worked at the Labora tory of Neuro-endocrine Regulation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Cardiovascular Laboratory at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Before his Lübeck role he had been a Medical Director in Magdeburg and Chair of Medicine at Warwick University Medical School, Coventry University Hospital, United Kingdom. This year he became President of Lübeck University – and he will head Medica Education until 2016. Invigorating Medica’s Education Conference Identifying the best hospital safety technology Collaboration with Europe’s largest specialist medical society brings rewards On the occasion of the upcoming Euro ID and ID World International Congress 2014 in November in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Cornelia Wels-Maug asked about the role of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in healthcare, during her interview with H Sprague Ackley, Technical Fellow at Honeywell Scanning & Mobility, and a member of the ID World International Congress Committee From the time a patient is on the way to hospital, through the admission process, on to diagnosis and treatment, and all the way to final discharge, everything about his or her health and needs must be ensured – particularly in terms of personal identification, medications, nursing care and much more. Safety is a vital part of successful care 4

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